About the Artwork
In this portrait of Anna Dibble Tucker (1759-1837), the artist Ralph Earl signified Anna's prosperity, refinement, virtue, and religious piety. Seated in a silk-upholstered armchair, she wears a gray silk dress in the conservative robe à l’anglaise style and looks up from her carefully stitched floral needlework. The white steeple of the First Church in her town of Danbury, Connecticut, appears through the open window. This portrait reflects the period's culture of domesticity that shaped expectations for gendered behaviors.
Earl painted this portrait of Anna and a pendant of her husband, Thomas Tucker (1744-1820), in 1790. In the late 1780s and 1790s, Earl traveled around Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont as an itinerant painter. The meticulous detail of his portraits attracted commissions from middle-class merchants, farmers, ministers, and politicians in that region.
Portrait of Anna Dibble Tucker
1790
Ralph Earl
1751-1801
American
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Oil on canvas
Overall: 37 3/4 × 31 3/4 inches (95.9 × 80.6 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Museum Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund
2024.14
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Markings
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Provenance
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Ralph Earl, Portrait of Anna Dibble Tucker, 1790, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund, 2024.14.
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