John George Brown - The Music Lesson [1870]

John George Brown - The Music Lesson [1870], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A specialist in depicting children, Brown (American, 1831 – 1913) occasionally told tales of young womanhood. Here, a well-furnished middle-class parlour provides the setting for a courtship story in which a man instructs a woman in playing the flute. At a time of concern that marriage was losing popularity, birthrates were dropping, and women's increasing independence could upset the balance between the sexes, Brown celebrated romance and marriage by referring to music. Music making was an approved activity for courting couples, and music was a universal language for expressing feelings. Underscoring the message of a potential marriage are the planter filled with ivy, which could signify women who cling to men for support; the harp, a common symbol of love; the haloed female figure in the print on the wall; and the couple's complementary attire and shared concentration.

[Oil on canvas, 61 x 50.8 cm]

John George Brown -The Card Trick [1880–89]

Brown's narratives maintain the explicitness of mid-nineteenth-century works, though he painted many of them much later. In this canvas, three white bootblacks watch a black youth perform a card trick. Brown (American, 1831–1913) ascribes street smarts and gamesman's skills to this clever character. One of the few American painters before 1900 to grapple with the subject of the urban poor, Brown specialized in sentimental depictions of industrious immigrants, especially street urchins who project optimism and good cheer despite the hardships of city life. These ragamuffins, counterparts of Horatio Alger's homeless fourteen-year-old bootblack Ragged Dick and other resourceful characters, flourished and inspired Brown until compulsory public education laws ended their enterprise.

[Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 66 x 78.7 cm]