day 24 girl with cat

Girl with Cat by Ammi Phillips  1814

I've been to the Amon Carter Museum several times.  Sometimes this portrait is displayed.  I love it.
The first time I saw it I saw a description that said something to the effect that in the early 1800s there were traveling artists who would paint portraits.  Of course, the artists who were very good could charge more, so they had the upper-class clientele. The ones who were not so good could still find work in the middle class.  Many times the name of the artist was unknown for these middle-class artists. 
This piece was attributed to Ammi Philips- who was a traveling artist.  I'm sure the art people to grouped this painting with Ammi Philips' other works know more about technique and style than I do, but, I didn't see any other portraits which have been attributed to him with these crazy eyes.

The first time I saw it I thought, "Whoa! Look at those crazy eyes on that girl."  I wonder if she really had those crazy eyes, or if the painter was having a really bad day and said, 'Screw it! That's as good as it gets!'" Then I looked at the cat's eyes and I felt it was more likely the second option. That cat has creepy-people eyes. 

I don't know where that girl is looking, or why one eye is bigger.  Maybe she really did look like that- bless her.  It's just that usually artists would romanticize portraits.  They would fix flaws, but this artist's 'leitmotif' (I just learned that word, it means "a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation.") was that he would create “correct likenesses.” 

If this is a 'correct likeness' I guess I'm more worried about the cat than the girl.


1815c MaryAnn Gale

Also attributed to Phillips.   Same chair, similar curtain, strong jaw, but much less crazy-in-the-eyes, although I suppose the right one does look bigger than the left. Looks like her cat ran away.


1820c Nancy Caldwell Church Robinson

Look at her with the book, the chair and the curtain, no cat and really normal-looking eyes!  I totally believe she looked like this.