Portrait of Two Children

The identity of the sitters in this painting has never been adequately established, although some evidence indicates that they are the children of Captain and Mrs. Stephen Brown of Hamilton, Massachusetts, a town just north of Boston.
None of Joseph Badger’s portraits are signed, and attributions to him are based on several surviving portraits documented through eighteenth-century family records.
The double portrait serves as a useful comparison with Daniel Badger’s paintings of an unidentified musician and Sarah Badger Noyes. Similarities include the rather flat, linear quality and dark outlines of forms often associated with sign and ornamental painting, the type of training both Joseph and Daniel Badger would have had.

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