Mrs. Stiles and Grandchild, Samuel Bell Waugh

Exhibition Label: "Corpus," Apr-2012, Kate Meyer Portraitist and panorama painter Samuel Waugh worked in Canada and studied in Italy before settling in Philadelphia in the 1840s. His portrait of Mrs. Stiles and her grandchild, like other pictures of daily life, reinforces the cultural values of his era. Although this grandmother clearly pays close attention to her bible, her attention to her grandchild is less focused. The infant plays with a toy horse and cart, guiding the team with a whip. That rod seems to have been spared on this happy and perhaps spoiled child, for another toy lies broken on the floor. The child’s appearance in a dress does not necessarily prove the child is female, for very young girls and boys were both clothed in dresses throughout the 19th century. The stereotypically masculine horse and cart may indicate toys belonging to a boy, and the reckless play that may have caused the destruction of the other toy suggests the mischievous behavior credited to boys during the period.