Figure 1.--This Lydia Field Emmet portrait was entitled 'The Brothers'. It was painted about 1909. We do not know who the boys were, obviously a well-to-do family. The older boy has short hair and may be about 8-years old. He wears a white summer sailor suit with white abkle sicks and pumps. The abkle socks were unuual at the time. His younger brother looks to be about 5-6 years old. His hair is dine in page boy bangs. He wears what looks like a blusish grey frock. At the time tunics were popular, but frock like this one were going out of style for boys. Like his brother, he wers white sovks and pumps.

Lydia Field Emmet (1866-1952) was an American female artist best known for her work as a portraitist. The family was Irish immigrants, but reaching America before the wave following the Potato Famine. One of her ancestors was hanged by the British for treason. Two surviving sisters also became artists. She studied in Europe. She began as an illustrator, at age 16 years she was commissioned to illustrate Henrietta Christian Wright's children's book Little Folk in Green. As her reputation grew, she aloong with other prominet women artists worked on murals in the omen's Building of the Columbian World Fair (1893).She studied with several prominent artists, including William Merritt Chase, Harry Siddons Mowbray, Kenyon Cox and Tony Robert-Fleury--showing the still primarily male domination of art. She exhibited widely and was well received. She was after Mary Caasett one the earliest woman artist of any prominance. She was primarily a portratist, but unlike Cassett did not focus on mothers and children. Rather she was a geeral portraist. She painted some children, but they were not her exclusive subject. One example is the Cross children in 1903. The unidentified portrait here painted about 1909 is another good example (figure 1). Emmet's works are today found in many important American art galleries. There is even one in the White House.

Created: 7:12 PM 12/14/2016
Last updated: 7:12 PM 12/14/2016