
Mrs. David Forman and Child
- Artist: Charles Willson Peale, American, 1741-1827
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dates: ca. 1785
- Dimensions: 51 x 39 3/8 in. (129.5 x 100 cm)
- Signature: Unsigned
- Collections: American Art
- Museum Location:
This item is on view in American Identities: A New Look, 5th floor - Accession Number: 23.51
- Credit Line: Carll H. de Silver and Museum Collection Funds
- Image: Overall, 23.51_reference_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
The wife of a wealthy Continental army officer and the mother of eleven children, Mrs. David Forman was portrayed by Charles Willson Peale in an interior that was meant to suggest the elegance and bounty of her domestic life. Peale was one of the rare American colonial artists to include paintings in his portrait interiors. The presence of the landscape hanging behind Ann Forman signaled the cultured life of the Forman household, and the gently idealized curves of its composition offered a parallel to the sitter's natural feminine beauty and grace.
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