The Fishermans Daughter

Sentimental genre prints documented the social image of Victorian virtue through domestic scenes of courtship, family, home life, and images of the “genteel female.” Children are depicted studying nature or caring for their obedient pets as they learn their place in the greater world. Romantic scenes picture devoted husbands with their contented, dutiful wives. In these prints, young women educated in reading, music, needlework, the arts, the language of flowers, basic math and science are subjugated to their family’s needs.

These prints became popular as lithography was introduced to 19th Century Americans. As a new art form, it was affordable for the masses and provided a means to share visual information by crossing the barriers of race, class and language. Sentimental prints encouraged the artistic endeavors of schoolgirls and promoted the ambitions of amateur artists, while serving as both moral instruction and home or business decoration. They are a pictorial record of our romanticized past.

This hand colored print is a full length portrait of a young woman leaning on an oar. She is wearing a blue sash with fringe, blue slippers, a chain and anchor around her waist, a net on her hair and an apron with a striped underskirt. In the background is the shoreline with a boat, trees and a house with gothic windows.

Kellogg & Bulkeley was the lithography firm formed from the partnership between Elijah Chapman Kellogg, Edmund Burke Kellogg and William Henry Bulkeley. The firm was formed in 1867, and shortly after both Elijah Chapman Kellogg and his brother Edmund Burke Chapman retired. After their retirement the only Kellogg remaining in the business was Edmund’s son Charles Kellogg. By1871 the partnership between the Kellogg family and Bulkeley had been reorganized as an incorporated stock company. The company came to an end when is merged with Case, Lockwood, & Brainard to become Connecticut Printers in 1947. Connecticut Printers remained open until 1990 when the Kellogg lithography firm finally ended after 160 years.

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