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Rachel Bartholomew Davis
James Alexander Simpson (born Georgetown, DC 1805-died Baltimore, MD 1880)
ca. 1815
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 14 7/8 x 12 1/8 in. (37.8 x 30.8 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Allen Little
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
James Alexander Simpson taught art classes at Georgetown College and created portraits of the Washington elite. He made this portrait of Rachel Bartholomew Davis in the same year that he painted her husband, Thomas Davis, possibly on the occasion of their marriage. Rachel’s pose mirrors her husband’s, and Simpson painted the two figures so that their paintings might be hung facing one another. Rachel’s curls and rosy cheeks emphasize her youth and innocence as she enters into married life.
