Deborah Hall
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
These two full-length portraits were painted in two colonial American cities— Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Lima, Peru. Despite that distance, they share a formality of pose and an emphasis on fine costume, grand setting, and symbolic details that reveal their common source in European portrait models. The enclosed gardens, for example, suggest the chaste purity of the sitters.
The two portraitists practiced under dramatically different circumstances. The Lima painter operated within a guild, modeled on Hispanic royal tradition. The guild specialized in religious art for the Catholic churches in what was then the viceregal capital city of Peru. The selftaught Philadelphia painter served a more modest market (in this case the Quaker community), whose wealth and social ambitions paled in comparison to their South American counterparts.
Caption
William Williams American, 1727–1791, active in America 1746–1776. Deborah Hall, 1766. Oil on canvas, 71 3/8 x 46 3/8 in. (181.3 x 117.8 cm) frame: 78 1/2 x 53 1/4 x 2 1/2 in. (199.4 x 135.3 x 6.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 42.45. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 42.45_SL3.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Deborah Hall
Date
1766
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
71 3/8 x 46 3/8 in. (181.3 x 117.8 cm) frame: 78 1/2 x 53 1/4 x 2 1/2 in. (199.4 x 135.3 x 6.4 cm)
Signatures
Signed lower left: "Wm. Williams 1766"
Credit Line
Dick S. Ramsay Fund
Accession Number
42.45
Rights
No known copyright restrictions
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Frequent Art Questions
Who is she?
The artist is William Williams, and the subject/sitter is a person named Deborah Hall. She was 16 when this portrait was painted. She was the daughter of a printer named David Hall who was based in Philadelphia. At one time he was Benjamin Franklin's business partner.Squirrels do appear with young portrait subjects in 18th century American portraits, and there was a symbolic reason because they showed that the child or young adult had the responsibility and discipline to train these frisky pets. It said something about their own character as they learned to become adults. Deborah Hall was a marriageable young woman and the squirrel, and other objects in the scene, show her virtues.I don't see the wall card for this painting, but it reminds me of portraits by John Singleton Copley. What is the time period in relation to Copley? Is there some connection, or is it a coincidence?
I could definitely see how this would remind you of Copley. William Williams was painting at the same time as Copley, and they were working for the same kinds of clients in the same geographical region (affluent English colonists and their descendants).Also, colonial Americans would have wanted their portraits to look like British portraits, so there were overall similarities in style and content between different artists' work at the time.I see.This portrait is also full of symbolism. You may have read this on the wall panel text already: "William Williams portrayed his young subject in a fictional, carefully designed landscape standing alongside a relief sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, who escaped the god’s unwelcome advances by turning into a laurel tree. This detail refers to both the sitter’s chastity and her liberal education and refined upbringing. The sitter’s rose-colored dress, known as an 'open robe,' not only attests to her au courant style but also acts as an unmistakable signifier of her family’s wealth and social status."I didn't see that. Thanks!You're welcome! Colonial portraits of young people with pet squirrels symbolized diligence and patience, since the owners had to carefully train the squirrels and they learned responsibility in the process. In fact, Copley made several portraits of young boys with squirrels on leashes. There's one at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.You are giving us so much material to research; thank you for your observations.Were chipmunks on leashes popular in the late 18th century, and if so why?
Deborah Hall is actually holding a squirrel; and yes this was a popular pet in the 18th century. Squirrels in painting symbolized things like diligence and patience. The idea of catching and domesticating a wild animal, like a squirrel, connects to the careful cultivation of the rose and ultimately Deborah's virtuous upbringing.That is actually amazing. thank you! Wow, we never would have guessed.I myself have to agree, I'm not patient enough to train a dog, let alone a squirrel!
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