Object Details
- Description
- Sentimental genre prints documented the social image of Victorian virtue through domestic scenes of courtship, family, home life, and images of the “genteel female.” Children are depicted studying nature or caring for their obedient pets as they learn their place in the greater world. Romantic scenes picture devoted husbands with their contented, dutiful wives. In these prints, young women educated in reading, music, needlework, the arts, the language of flowers, basic math and science are subjugated to their family’s needs.
- These prints became popular as lithography was introduced to 19th Century Americans. As a new art form, it was affordable for the masses and provided a means to share visual information by crossing the barriers of race, class and language. Sentimental prints encouraged the artistic endeavors of schoolgirls and promoted the ambitions of amateur artists, while serving as both moral instruction and home or business decoration. They are a pictorial record of our romanticized past.
- This three-quarter length colored portrait print is of a young woman standing at a railing. The girl is looking back over her right shoulder. She is wearing a large hat with feathers and dress with large billowing sleeves. To her left there is heavy drapery with a tassel.
- This lithograph was done by Anthony Imbert, a lithographer and marine painter based in New York. He was active as an artist from 1825 until his death in around 1838. He was born in France and became a French naval officer. He learned to paint after he was imprisoned by the British. When he was released, he came to the United States and developed a career as a lithographer and marine painter. He pioneered many new forms of lithography including a folding lithograph by joining two stories to create a larger print. The artist Dominico Canova was born in Milan, Italy. He immigrated to New York City in 1825, where he began his work as a lithographer under Anthony Imbert. He was primarily known in Louisiana as a teacher of painting and drawing, a muralist and painter. After a few years working under Anthony Imbert he accepted a teaching position in Convent Louisiana, at the College of Jefferson. Throughout the rest of his career, he held various teaching positions at different colleges and schools throughout Louisiana. He died in New Orleans in 1868.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- maker
- Imbert, Anthony
- artist
- Canova, Dominico
- Roberts, J. M.
- date made
- ca 1830
- Credit Line
- Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
- Physical Description
- paper (overall material)
- ink (overall material)
- Measurements
- image: 11 in x 8 in; 27.94 cm x 20.32 cm
- Object Name
- lithograph
- Object Type
- Lithograph
