New Web objects Portrait

William Matthew Prior

Date: by 1856

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.123

Text Entries: Brothers-in-law and portrait painters, William Matthew Prior and Sturtevant J. Hamblin lived together with their families in Boston by 1841. Many portraits have been attributed to both artists because they worked in a generally similar style and in close association in their shared workshop. Artists depicted toys to distinguish the gender of the child since boys and girls often wore the same style of clothes. Usually toys included in portraits of boys were associated with the world of adult males, for example, whips, wagons, or bow and arrows as shown in this portrait. Popularity of manufactured and handmade toys increased in the mid-nineteenth century reflecting the acceptance of child's play-previously considered idle activity.