Henry Inman was trained by the esteemed New York portraitist John Wesley Jarvis, and he soon rivaled his master in attracting commissions from prominent New York families. Inman worked briefly in Philadelphia, where he founded one of the first lithography firms in the United States. Between the mid-1830s and his death in 1846, he was among New York's most popular painters.
In this serene and elegant portrait, one of the artist's best known, Inman depicted Anna Traphagen Buckham and her daughter Georgianna. He also painted a companion portrait of her husband, George Buckham, an affluent New York attorney, a friend of the artist, and later a pallbearer at his funeral. Here, mother and daughter are fashionably attired. Mrs. Buckham wears a fancy cap adorned with blue silk flowers and lace; Georgianna, about five years old in this picture, stands in front of her mother in a brightly colored plaid dress. Mrs. Buckham places her arm around her daughter's shoulders in a gesture that is both affectionate and protective. Although Inman painted a number of other portraits of children, it was in "Georgianna Buckham and Her Mother" that he was best able to capture the softness of a little girl's skin and the sweetness of her smile.

This text was adapted from Carol Troyen and Janet Comey, "Children in American Art" (Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 2007, in Japanese).

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