Home Scene
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Model Sisters
Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent were just beginning their hugely successful careers when they turned to cherished sisters as their models for these two intimate works. Although both had studied figure painting in Paris, they found powerful inspiration in Dutch and Spanish seventeenth-century painting (especially the works of Rembrandt van Rijn and Diego Velázquez), famous for their expressive description of light and shadow.
Eakins painted his sister Margaret (1853–1882) overseeing the younger Caroline (1865–1889) at a time when their mother was gravely ill. Sargent’s similarly tender and richly brushed portrait of his little sister Violet (1870–1955) is his earliest surviving oil portrait.
Caption
Thomas Eakins American, 1844–1916. Home Scene, ca. 1871. Oil on canvas, 21 7/16 × 18 in. (54.4 × 45.7 cm) frame: 29 × 25 × 3 in. (73.7 × 63.5 × 7.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of George A. Hearn and Charles A. Schieren, by exchange, Frederick Loeser Fund and Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 50.115. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 50.115_SL1.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Home Scene
Date
ca. 1871
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
21 7/16 × 18 in. (54.4 × 45.7 cm) frame: 29 × 25 × 3 in. (73.7 × 63.5 × 7.6 cm)
Signatures
Signed lower right: "Eakins"
Credit Line
Gift of George A. Hearn and Charles A. Schieren, by exchange, Frederick Loeser Fund and Dick S. Ramsay Fund
Accession Number
50.115
Rights
No known copyright restrictions
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