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Girl of the Bangs-Phelps Family

ca. 1848
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 732
Over a fifty-year career that included early training with Samuel F. B. Morse, Field became one of the most successful itinerant painters in antebellum New England and New York State. He developed a repertoire of compositional formulas to depict the features and surroundings of his sitters, who belonged to the emerging rural middle class. Field’s portrait of a female member of the Bangs-Phelps family of Springfield, Massachusetts, presents her wearing an oversized, nicely detailed costume and holding a book in her right hand. The background is a soft gray color, with Field’s distinctive shaded halo of space encircling the skillfully modeled face and sharply parted hair.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Girl of the Bangs-Phelps Family
  • Artist: Erastus Salisbury Field (1805–1900)
  • Date: ca. 1848
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 58 3/4 × 30 1/4 in. (149.2 × 76.8 cm)
    Framed: 63 1/2 in. × 35 5/8 in. × 3 in. (161.3 × 90.5 × 7.6 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1963
  • Object Number: 63.201.4
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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Egyptian Scene (possibly Moses and Zipporah), Erastus Salisbury Field American, Oil on canvas, American
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The Death of the First Born, Erastus Salisbury Field American, Oil on canvas, American
The Death of the First Born
Erastus Salisbury Field
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In the Woods, Asher Brown Durand American, Oil on canvas, American
In the Woods
Asher Brown Durand
1855
Mountain Scene, Albert Bierstadt American, Oil on paper, American
Mountain Scene
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1880–90
Still Life—Flowers and Fruit in White and Pink Bowl, Oil on glass, tinsel, American
Still Life—Flowers and Fruit in White and Pink Bowl
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