Competitive Blowers
Artist
James D. Smillie
(American, 1833 - 1909)
Date1887
MediumInk wash on paper
DimensionsOverall: 12 × 9in. (30.5 × 22.9cm)
ClassificationsDRAWINGS
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number2004.18.2
DescriptionTwo young children standing in a garden setting blowing on dandelions. The child on the left is wearing a dark smock/dress and a brimmed straw hat with flowers in it. She is standing in profile facing the right. The right side child is wearing a light colored smock/dress and knitted skull cap.On View
Not on viewLabel TextThis wash drawing along with two related works, a photograph and an etching, provide a rare insight into the working methods of the prolific 19th century American engraver and painter, James D. Smillie. He based this drawing on a photograph made by his younger brother Charles. In copying the photograph James retained the pose and costume of the young children but simplified the background by eliminating a stone wall and by changing the composition to a vertical format.
Smillie then used the drawing as the source for an etching that was published with the title What O'Clock Is It? This title refers to a now-forgotten child's game in which the number of dandelion seeds left on a stem indicates the time of day or foretells some future event. In 1889 the etching was published in J. Ripley W. Hitchcock's Representative Etchings by Artists of Today in America and exhibited by Smillie at the New-York Etching Club, an organization he helped to found several years earlier. Today the print is very rare.
The wash drawing and its related photograph and etching descended in Smillie's family until they were acquired by a private collector from whom they were purchased by the Museum.
Paul D. Schweizer
August 2005
