Blond Boy with Primer, Peach, and Dog

Itinerant painter Ammi Phillips was the most prolific American country portrait painter of the nineteenth century; in a career spanning over fifty years, he may have painted as many as two thousand portraits. Phillips worked in a variety of styles, responding to the artistic influences he encountered as he traveled. This work belongs to a group executed between 1829 and 1838, when the artist lived in the area of Kent, Connecticut. Elegant and spirited, the portrait displays the mature skill of an artist who had no academic training but nevertheless possessed brilliant talent.