Focus on Interior with Portraits and analyze the About.
The painting features two children, James and Parnell Sidway, posing for a photograph in an artist's studio. The painting was commissioned by the subjects' older brother, Franklin Sidway. Parnell was an adolescent when she died of illness in 1850, while James was a 26-year-old volunteer firefighter who died in a hotel fire shortly before the painting was commissioned.The likenesses of the subjects as children were painted from family daguerreotypes. Some painters of the time regarded photography with suspicion, and refused to use photographs as references for portraits. The painting is filled with references to this tension. The children are surrounded by painted portraits, and the photographer's back is to the viewer with his face obscured. The girl appears to be supporting the boy and holding him still, as might have been necessary when posing a child for an early photograph due to the long exposure time. A dog is depicted just entering the studio, another acknowledgement of early photography's limitation to still subjects.
daguerreotype daguerreotypes Franklin Sidway