Street Gallantry

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Street Gallantry

Artist: John George (J. G.) Brown (American, born England, 1831 - 1913)

Date: 1880

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

27 1/4 x 43 1/2 in. (69.2 x 110.5 cm)

Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, gift of the Friedrich Estate

Object number: 71.273.29

Signed: Signed lower left: J. G. Brown, N. A.

Inscribed: Signed lower left: J. G. Brown, N. A.

Label Text

When this scene of urban flower sellers offering a ragged little girl a free bouquet was exhibited in New York in 1886, the reviewer doubted J.G. Brown’s accuracy. He wondered “where he [Brown] finds such self-conscious, smirking brats as are here drawn up in a row, and whether anybody has ever seen little street boys gallant to little street girls, or if such grown-up sentiment ever entered into the head or was expressed on the face of a female child in such surroundings.” Despite this carping, Brown was beloved for works like this, which featured the poor working children of New York, whose cheerful attitudes prevailed despite the harsh circumstances of their daily lives.

Brown used actual urban children for his models. He cleaned them up in his finished canvases, however, to make them picturesque, rather than squalid. He thus avoided offending his audience, who wanted sentiment, rather than documentary accuracy.

(William Keyse Rudolph, 2014)

Not on view

The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.

Artwork

Street Gallantry

Street Gallantry