Squire's Wife

Dateca. 1850

Attributed to John James Trumbull Arnold 1812 - ca. 1865

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 34 1/8 x 28in. (86.7 x 71.1cm) and Framed: 39 1/4 x 32 1/4in.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1937.100.3

DescriptionOil portrait of a woman frontally faced in half length against a dark greyish background. She wears a black dress with long closely fitting sleeves which bell outward below the elbow, and long lacey under sleeves, her dress has a V neckline which is filled in with a white lace shirt and a high round collar. She wears long dangling gold filigree earrings with pearls, a long gold watch chain with an oval gold with diamond clasp which attaches to a gold watch placed in a pocket to her right. Her waist is extremely narrow. A rosewood side chair is barely visible behind her. She wears a hair bracelet attached with a gold fastener on her right writs, a gold and red stone ring on right forefinger, and a solid gold ring on middle finger of her right hand. She wears three rings on her left hand. She wears two gold pins on her chest. Her fiche has white on white embroidery flowers on it with tiny blue flowers at her neck. She has a thin upper lip, light arching eyebrows, hair parted in the center with corkscrew ringlets above her ears, and seems to have some sort of ornament in her hair.Label TextAs in companion likenesses of John and Agnes Dunbar painted in York County, Pennsylvania, in 1853-1854, the artist has not bothered to adhere to the convention of posing these two sitters slightly turned toward each other, although there is little doubt they form a pair. Many hallmarks of John James Trumbull Arnold's style are evident, including soft gray brown shading of the eyelids and tiny dark eyelashes that sprout from them one by one. Their hands demonstrate Arnold's typical treatment, consisting of linear definition, minimal modeling, crisply outlined nails, and depiction within a flat plane. Fingers are held together, and even if they are separated, as the mans are by his book, they appear unconvincing and two-dimensional. The woman's left hand provides an amusing glimpse of Arnold's attempt to produce a more naturalistic bend in the fingers; since they are still positioned together and are flatly depicted, they cannot assume the required configuration with any semblance of realism and droop like soft wax candles.

Both sitters' costumes are enlivened by touches of jewelry, and the sweeping curves of their gold watch chains add graceful lines that stand out sharply against the black of waistcoat and dress. The man wears a ruby ring surrounded by pearls; his companion is unusually bedecked by almost any standard, being adorned in dangling pearl and filigree earrings, a hair bracelet, two brooches, a watch chain, five rings, and a head ornament! The title of "squire" was undoubtedly an early twentieth-century tongue-in-cheek reference to the couple's profusion of finery.
ProvenanceFound in New Jersey and purchased from Edith Gregor Halpert by Mrs. Rockefeller. Given to C. W. in 1939 by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Origin probably Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia or W.Va