Rebecca Orne
Artist
Joseph Badger
(American, born 1707 or 1708–1765)
Date1757
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionscanvas: 65.4 × 52.7 cm (25 3/4 × 20 3/4 in.)
framed: 75.2 × 62.5 cm (29 5/8 × 24 5/8 in.)
framed: 75.2 × 62.5 cm (29 5/8 × 24 5/8 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineEliza S. Paine Fund in memory of William R. and Frances T.C. Paine
Object number1971.101
DescriptionRebecca Orne is a half-length portrait of a standing child, turned three-quarters to the right with her head facing nearly forward. The figure is placed toward the top of the canvas, creating a crowded composition that is characteristic of portraits by Joseph Badger. The girl’s oval face is framed with brown hair that is pulled back at the top and sides to fall in loose curls at the back of her neck. Her brown eyes gaze directly at the viewer.The flesh tones in the face, chest, and arms have been abraded, revealing the gray underpainting. Badger probably used this cool gray as a mid-tone in the flesh, but the current condition exaggerates this first layer of paint. This type of deterioration is common in Badger’s paintings, leading one art historian to describe his portraits as "spectral."1 No doubt his paintings were livelier in their original state, although the artist, who was trained as a glazier-painter, possessed only a limited technical knowledge of his pigments and medium. There are shadows in the face on the right side of the forehead, under the eyes, to the right of the nose, under the chin, and on the right side of the throat.
Rebecca Orne’s proper right arm crosses in front of her body at her waist, and she holds a gray and white squirrel on her outstretched hand and wrist. The three fingers of the left hand that rest on the squirrel’s back appear awkwardly detached, since neither the left arm nor the rest of that hand is represented. The squirrel’s fur is painted with long hatched strokes of white and varying shades of gray. Its ears stand erect at a slight angle, and its tail forms a tall S-curve. The child’s arm casts a shadow on her dress, helping to bring this part of the painting forward.
The girl wears a dress made of a shimmering pink fabric, which is the most fluidly painted element in the composition. The neckline begins at her shoulders and is cut low across her chest. The only visible sleeve ends just below the elbow and has a wide cuff that flares out and rests on the girl’s forearm. The pink fabric is painted with light and dark curving strokes blended together, suggesting that the dress is pulled tightly across the girl’s torso; sharper contrasts of light and dark pink in the sleeves and skirt indicate looser folds of fabric in those areas. The skirt flows out from the waist at the bottom of the composition. The dress is trimmed with semitransparent white ruffles at the neck and cuffs, where the fabric is widest. The outer edges of this trim are painted in white with low impasto, and the shadows created behind these folds are painted dark red.
The brown background is darkest at the left side of the painting and lightest directly to the girl’s right; a very light brown highlight traces the outline of her torso. The background becomes gradually darker as the eye moves toward the right edge of the painting. In the upper-right corner is a pale blue section, which has probably faded from its original intensity.
Label TextThis painting is one of six portraits of the Orne family of Worcester that the Boston area painter Joseph Badger painted in the 1750s. Timothy Orne (1717–1767), Rebecca’s father, was a wealthy Salem merchant, who owned more than fifty vessels that sailed to the West Indies and Europe, carrying fish, cloth, wine, rum, brandy, grains, molasses, and enslaved peoples, indicating that the sitter of this portrait’s family was directly involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The portrait’s appearance reveals Badger’s style and working methods. He used grey as a base color for his figures, which is now exaggeratedly visible in Rebecca Orne’s dress, skin, and areas of the background, after earlier cleanings of the canvas which removed the brighter layers of paint that would have been on top. Probably self-taught, Badger learned to draw by copying engravings. Rebecca’s pet squirrel likely never existed in real life. Domesticated squirrels were standard props in portraits of children that Badger would have adapted from his print sources. Source: Guide to the Orne Family Papers, Philips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem. ProvenanceBy descent in the family of the sitter, from Timothy and Rebecca (Taylor) Orne; to their daughter Esther (Orne) and John Clarke; to her sister Rebecca (Orne), the sitter, and Joseph Cabot; to their daughter Rebecca Orne Cabot; to her nephew, Joseph S. and Susan (Burley Howes) Cabot; to his cousin Josephine (Rose Lee) and William Gurdon Saltonstall; to their son Robert and Caroline (James Stevenson) Saltonstall, by 1897; to their daughter Harriet (Lee Saltonstall) and William H. Gratwick, Jr., by 1943. Purchased from Mrs. Gratwick, 1971.
On View
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