Object Details
- Luce Center Label
- Hugo Ballin loved music and liked to play the piano when he was not painting. In this image the teacher plays a portative organ and her student follows on a flute. Before the ruptures of the First World War, middle-class American families still aspired to a nineteenth-century ideal of gentility. Children, particularly girls, were encouraged to study art and music as part of their upbringing. The dark, richly patterned background of this painting evokes a luxurious tapestry, reflecting the cultivated life of young ladies at the turn of the twentieth century.
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Artist
- Hugo Ballin, born New York City 1879-died Santa Monica, CA 1956
- Date
- 1907
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 50 x 40 in. (127.0 x 101.6 cm)
- Type
- Painting
