Portrait
HENRY INMAN (1801–1846)
The Ray Children, 1838
Oil on canvas, 29 1/2 x 36 3/8 in.
RECORDED: “Exhibition of the National Academy.––No. IV,” New York Literary Gazette, no. 17 (May 25, 1839), p. 133
EXHIBITED: (possibly) National Academy of Design, New York, 1838, no. 220 as “Group of Children” // National Academy of Design, New York, 1839, no. 185 as “Group of Two Children” // National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1987, The Art of Henry Inman, pp. 43, 118 no. 49 illus. // Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 2011–12, The World of Duncan Phyfe: The Arts of New York, 1800–1847, p. 141 no. 96 illus. in color
EX COLL.: James H. Ricau, Piermont, New York; to his estate, 1993 until the present
In 1837 New York City attorney Robert Ray commissioned Henry Inman to paint this ambitious double portrait of his daughters, Mary and Tuthie. In keeping with the prevailing belief that children’s portraits should reflect their family’s prosperity and social status, Inman posed his subjects in an elegant indoor-outdoor setting, showing them seated on a brightly patterned rug adjacent to an arcade leading out to a lush garden and distant hills. Indeed, although figure painting was his bread-and-butter, Inman took great delight in depicting landscape elements; as he once said: “I cannot even get a chance to paint a landscape, unless I stick it into a portrait, where I sometimes manage to crowd in a bit of sky, or some old tree or green bank” (C. Edwards Lester, The Artists of America [New York: Baker and Scribner, 1846], p. 43).
In The Ray Children, the sumptuous brocade drapery on the right serves as a framing device that leads our gaze to the rosy-cheeked youngsters in the center of the composition. Dressed in white gowns (an allusion to their youth and purity) and accompanied by a perky dog (a symbol of fidelity), they look directly at the viewer, seemingly at ease with the proceedings at hand. The small bouquet of flowers held by the girl on the left implies the freshness of youth, while the solitary blossom on the floor suggests the passage of time. As was typical of his portrait aesthetic, Inman depicts the scene with soft brushwork, imbuing the smiling girls with the sentimental quality that his affluent patrons found so appealing. Interestingly, when exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1839, a reviewer for the New York Literary Gazette ignored Inman’s ability to evoke the innocence of childhood. Instead, the writer directed his attention to the elaborate backdrop and the accoutrements of Robert Ray’s wealth, as well as to Inman’s handling of his rosy-checked subjects (his sitters weren’t always correctly proportioned, a feature that made the finished product all the more charming). The painting, he said, represented:
a half-interior––a piazza––the columns wreathed with honey suckle, form arches, of which one is quite screened by the inwoven vines, with another opens to us a glimpse of a stately garden, in the Italian taste, with terraces and fountains. Two fair girls sit within, on a rich carpet that partly covers the polished marble floor. One plays with a pretty spaniel; scattered about, are flowers and work. The figures are incorrectly drawn, but the background and accessories are perfect (“Exhibition of the National Academy.––No. IV,” New York Literary Gazette, no. 17 [May 25, 1839], p. 133).