Lot 7: Attributed to Henry Inman (American

Attributed to Henry Inman (American/New York/New Orleans, 1801-1846), "A Boy with Bow and Arrow (perhaps of the Wallace family of Rydal, PA)", possibly 1845, oil on canvas, unsigned, "Kennedy Galleries, New York" labels en verso, 30 in. x 25 in., framed.
Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, New York (two prominent labels en verso, one giving the traditional identification, as above.
Note: This enchanting portrait of a youth in a lavishly brass-buttoned "Robin Hood" suit of Lincoln green exhibits many characteristic features of Inman's style. First, the costume itself exemplifies a pattern common on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1830s and 1840s; but Inman's trademark motif of the ruffled shirt-pulled dramatically out and down to expose an expanse of chest and shoulder-is exactly paralleled in several of his sitters, most notably in his signed Boy in a Landscape of about this same date, in the Baltimore Museum of Art. The subject of that latter "cabinet" picture (a figure in a closely comparable pose, again holding make-believe weapons) is startlingly similar to the present sitter's. The same wide eyes, short nose, and full mouth are all set rather closely together, leaving a broad expanse of forehead visible beneath the forward-brushed blond hair. The present painting here, especially, includes one of Inman's quite unmistakable ears, rather generically painted for such a cosmopolitan artist: compare his documented W. C. Macready as William Tell, exhibited at the Boston Athenæum in 1828, and now at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (in which another broad neck and exposed upper shoulders are also particularly prominent). Both the William Tell and this painting share intriguingly similar backgrounds, in which the incipient forms may be read almost interchangeably as clouds, rocks, or vegetation: in the picture offered here, the young man is in the act of stepping out from behind a bush at the edge of a grove-suggested only by evanescent woodland forms along the left margin of the painting-and gesturing toward a vestigial stream beneath evergreen trees and a sunset sky, on the right margin. Exactly analogous features are also present in one of Inman's most celebrated paintings, his 1839 portrait of Georgianna Buckham with her Mother in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: once more the child's head, neck, and drapery are extremely close to this sitter's, and both children use absolutely identical gestures, in which their fingers are held in exactly the same configuration-she with her left hand reaching across her dress, and this youth with his right hand, pointing toward the distant stream and trees.
After moving from upstate to New York City at the age of eleven in 1812, two years later Henry Inman secured a coveted apprenticeship with John Wesley Jarvis (1781-1840), with whom he worked-and eventually collaborated-for seven years, traveling with Jarvis for example to New Orleans in the winters of 1820-21 and 1821-1822. He set up his own studio in New York in 1823, and in 1825 was instrumental in the founding of the National Academy of Design, of which he became vice-president. A highly accomplished draftsman, Inman painted a remarkably wide variety of subjects, but was perhaps best known for his fashionable portraits, which earned him the title of "the American Lawrence" (after Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1769-1830). He lived in Philadelphia from 1831-1834; and if the Kennedy Gallery tradition of the Pennsylvania origin of this superb portrait is valid, he might well have painted it there. In 1844-1845, however, he worked in England, where in 1845 he exhibited a Portrait of a Child at the Royal Academy in London (no. 331). That event has sometimes been associated with the referenced painting now in Baltimore; but given the larger size of paintings normally submitted to the Academy, and the not-very-American-looking accoutrements in this painting, it seems more likely that the 1845 exhibition record may plausibly refer to this more striking and impressive picture, rather than to the small cabinet painting in the Baltimore Museum of Art.
It has been authoritatively remarked-in the best overview of Inman's work-that he was almost preternaturally gifted, in his images of children (unlike his much more sober treatments of adults), with an ability to fix upon an expression at once amiable and immensely appealing. Nowhere is that special gift more in evidence that in this unforgettable young archer, whose robust presence is at both captivating and compelling. Whether it was executed in Philadelphia or in London, the haunting image of this youth depicted here may be situated as one of the touchstones of Inman's art.
References: Sally Mills, "Inman, Henry," in Grove Dictionary of Art, Jane Turner, ed., 34 vols., London, 1996, vol. 15, pp. 857-858; P. T. Rathbone, et al., American Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, 2 vols., Boston, 1969, vol. 1, p. 169, no. 643, vol. 2, pl. 232; R. F. Perkins & W. J. Gavin, Athenæum Art Exhibition Index, Boston, 1980, p. 84, 1828, no. 155; Sona K. Johnston, American Paintings 1750-1900 [in the] Museum of Art, Baltimore, 1983, pp. 89-90, no. 71; Gregory Hedberg, Yanks Paint Brits, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1996, p. 24, no. 12; John A. Mahé and Rosanne McCaffrey, eds., Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists, 1718-1918, New Orleans, 1987, p. 197.