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Phebe Russell Swain Welch
Sheldon Peck (American, 1797–1868)
c. 1837
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 65.4 × 55.3 cm (25 3/4 × 21 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- United States
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Juli and David Grainger Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Sheldon Peck rendered the distinctive likenesses of his two sitters, William and Phebe Welch, using hard-edged lines and modeled forms (see William W. Welch, 1990.100.1). Amid a dark setting, the couple’s intense gazes hold our attention. Their names and dates of birth are inscribed in golden yellow paint, emphasizing their identities. The Welches were among the white settler-colonialists who established homesteads in Illinois in the early 19th century. Beginning in 1834, they lived near Elgin along the Fox River.
Peck likewise has a local history. Born in Vermont, he lived in New York before moving to Babcock’s Grove (today Lombard, Illinois), where he worked as a farmer, portraitist, and social reformer.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
