Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
ADJUNCT MODULE C: WORLD ART
Preferred Title:
Mother, Mercie, and Mary
Image View:
Overall view without frame
Creator:
Edmund Charles Tarbell (American painter, 1862-1938)
Location:
repository: Colby College Museum of Art (Waterville, Maine, United States) 2013.270
Location Note:
5600 Mayflower Hill; Lunder Collection
GPS:
44.565-69.660833
Date:
1918 (creation)
Cultural Context:
American
Style Period:
Impressionist; Twentieth century
Work Type 1:
painting (visual work)
Classification:
Paintings
Material:
oil paint on canvas
Technique:
oil painting (technique)
Measurements:
71.44 cm (height) x 91.44 cm (width)
Subjects:
genre; interiors; American Impressionism
Description:
Edmund Tarbell was an American Impressionist known for his mastery of interior subjects and luminous effects. This painting shows the artist’s wife and adult daughters in the family’s handsome, tranquil home in New Castle, New Hampshire. Yet embedded in this domestic scene are signs of change. In the summer of 1918 Tarbell’s wife Emeline, absorbed in a newspaper, could have been reading about World War I or the campaign for women’s suffrage. The bag that hangs on an empty chair suggests a departure. Tarbell had recently been named principal of the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and Mercie, who gazes at the painter, had married. Placed prominently at the center of the composition, a bowl of open peonies stands as a reminder of transience. (Source: Colby Museum of Art [website]; http://www.colby.edu /museum/)
Collection:
Archivision Adjunct Module C: World Art
Identifier:
7A1-TARBELL-CA-MMM-A 01
Rights:
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.

Mother, Mercie, and Mary