The New Child - The Origins of Modern Childhood in English Art 1730-1830 (Berkeley Art Museum, 1995-08-23 - 1995-11-19)The New Child - The Origins of Modern Childhood in English Art 1730-1830 (Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 1995-12-10 - 1996-02-04)The New Child - The Origins of Modern Childhood in English Art 1730-1830 (Joslyn Art Museum, 1996-03-09 - 1996-05-05)The Conversation Piece - Arthur Devis & His Contemporaries (Yale Center for British Art, 1980-10-01 - 1980-11-30)
Publications:
Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 88-89, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)Ellen G. D'Oench, The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis & his contemporaries, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, pp. 28, 78, cat. no. 69, NJ18 D5151 D64 OVERSIZERichard D. Leppert, The Sight of Sound: Music, Representation, and the History of the Body, University of California Press, Berkley, 1993, p. 112, 113, Fig. 44, ML3800 L6 1993Mario Praz, Conversation Pieces : A Survey of the Informal Group Portrait in Europe and America, , Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, University Park, 1971, p. 159, 177, No. 124, ND1304 +P713 Oversize (YCBA)James Christen Steward, The New Child : British Art and the Origins of Modern Childhood, 1730-1830, , University Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, 1995, pp. 40, 85, pl. 12, N6766 S78 1995 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Ian Woodfield, Music of the Raj: A Social and Economic History of Music in Late Eighteenth-Century Anglo-Indian Society, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, p. 31, pl. 4, ML338.3 W66 2000
Gallery Label:
Music was an important aspect of life in India for Indians and colonists such as the Mason family. Here, Emily Mason beats a tambourine and lifts her heel from the ground, a movement similar to a formal dance performed in India. Her brother looks on, clutching a miniature rifle and leaning on an overturned urn that could be played as a drum. To Emily's right, sheet music rests on the pianoforte, the seat fully elevated to accommodate one of the children. --- A man and a woman are in conversation past the archway of the large neoclassical home; the woman is likely the family's ayah, a nursemaid from India responsible for the children's care. Their position toward the margins of Devis's composition mirrors the broader disparity in colonial society between East India Company families and the Indian population. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2021