A Girl Holding a Doll

Maker James Peale (American, 1749 - 1831)

Collections

American Paintings Selections

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Date1804

Mediumoil on canvas

Dimensionscanvas: 34 × 22 in. (86.4 × 55.9 cm.) frame: 38 1/2 × 31 5/8 × 2 3/4 in. (97.8 × 80.3 × 7 cm.)

Signedl.l.: J Peale 1804

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation

Status

On view

Label TextA Girl Holding a Doll celebrates material abundance and the increasingly domesticated role of women in American society during the 19th century. Peale's anonymous subject sits in an ebonized and gilded, turned-wood chair made especially for children. Like the chair, the elaborately patterned rug, carved wooden doll, and doll's cradle indicate that the girl comes from a wealthy home. Her dress is in the latest French Empire style and her wispy hair falls loose around her face, reflecting a new emphasis on naturalism in this period. The doll, dressed in the same fashion as her owner, and the cradle foreshadow the little girl's likely future role as a wife and mother.
James Peale most likely painted this portrait in Philadelphia, as it is similar to other paintings of women and girls wearing stylish neoclassical fashions and coiffures that he completed there in the first decade of the 19th century.

Object number83.8.35