Artwork
The Westwood Children
The Westwood Children is an oil painting by the Naïve art artist Joshua Johnson. It dates from 1807 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Two well-dressed children, a boy and a girl, sit together; he holds a toy, she a book in her lap. Their ease makes the portrait feel personal, a glimpse of an ordinary moment. Joshua Johnson painted them in 1807, oil on canvas.
Subject & Meaning
The work is classified as a portrait whose main subject is the sibling relationship, presenting the children as paired figures rather than as individuals.
Joshua Johnson's 1807 oil on canvas portrays two young boys, identified by provenance as siblings from the Westwood family of Baltimore, with the younger, George Washington Westwood, being one of the sitters. The work is classified as a portrait whose main subject is the sibling relationship, presenting the children as paired figures rather than as individuals. By depicting two brothers together, the painting functions as a familial group portrait, a format that emphasizes kinship and shared identity.
The genre of portraiture, combined with the sibling subject, suggests the work served to commemorate the children's status and family connection within early nineteenth-century Baltimore society.
Technique & Style
The Westwood Children is an oil painting executed on canvas, a support typical of early American portraiture. The work was created in 1807 and measures approximately 104.5 cm in height by 117 cm in width. It is classified as a portrait and depicts two children, identified as siblings, in a composition that reflects the genre of early American portraiture.
The painting's formal qualities include a straightforward frontal arrangement and a focus on the children's faces, characteristic of the naïve style associated with the artist Joshua Johnson.
History & Provenance
The Westwood Children was created by Joshua Johnson in 1807, executed in oil on canvas as a multi-figure sibling portrait. The painting originally belonged to George Washington Westwood, the youngest child depicted in the work, in Baltimore. It subsequently passed to his grand-niece, Grace Geddes Davis, and then to her sons, George Harvey Davis and Howard G. Davis, also of Baltimore.
The Davis brothers sold the painting in 1955 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. The Garbisches gave the work to the National Gallery of Art in 1959, where it has remained in the collection, accessioned as 1959.1.4.
Overview
Joshua Johnson's oil on canvas, The Westwood Children, created around 1807, captures a formal yet intimate portrait of two young sitters. The painting presents a boy and a girl, likely siblings from a prosperous family, posed together with objects suggesting their status and daily lives. This work exemplifies Johnson's approach to portraiture in early 19th-century America, reflecting both the conventions of the era and the artist's distinctive style.
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