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Kiss Me and You'll Kiss the 'Lasses

Lilly Martin Spencer

American Art

On View: American Art Galleries, 5th Floor, Radical Care
As the title implies, this bold young woman promises a dose of molasses to the person advancing to kiss her while she makes fruit preserves. The painting’s subject was as uncommon at the time as its independent female artist.

Lilly Martin Spencer was a wife and mother as well as a professional painter and family breadwinner. Her great accomplishment was in representing homemakers who combined ideal domesticity and a more liberated, playful self-assertion. This spirited figure also acted as the artist’s own voice in a male-dominated art world.
MEDIUM Oil on canvas
DATES 1856
DIMENSIONS 29 15/16 x 24 15/16 in. (76 x 63.3 cm) frame: 43 3/4 x 38 3/4 x 4 in. (111.1 x 98.4 x 10.2 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed lower right :"Lilly M. Spencer / 1856"
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 70.26
CREDIT LINE A. Augustus Healy Fund
PROVENANCE 1856, commissioned from the artist by the Cosmopolitan Art Association, New York, NY; by 1857, acquired by E. A. Carman of Newark, NJ; between 1857 and 1970, provenance not yet documented; by March 3, 1970, acquired by Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York; April 15, 1970, purchased from Bernard Danenberg Galleries by the Brooklyn Museum.
Provenance FAQ
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is on view in American Art Galleries, 5th Floor, Radical Care
CAPTION Lilly Martin Spencer (American, born England, 1822–1902). Kiss Me and You'll Kiss the 'Lasses, 1856. Oil on canvas, 29 15/16 x 24 15/16 in. (76 x 63.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, 70.26 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 70.26_PS20.jpg)
IMAGE overall, Paula Abreu Pita, 70.26_PS20.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2024
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RIGHTS STATEMENT No known copyright restrictions
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