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A fair-skinned woman lying propped up on pillows in a comfortable bedroom as sun beams through the window.

A woman dressed in bed clothes, covered by sheet and blanket, with her right arm flopped over the top of her head, looks to the left, where we barely see the back half of a man’s face in the dresser mirror on the left. Her left arm hangs over the bed, holding pages of a letter as they fall to the floor. A cat sits at the foot of the bed. Sun beams through the window on the right illuminating the reclining women and the bedside table covered in flowers and many small bottles, and two small books.

Gallery Text

Edward Lamson Henry’s sentimental, idealized images of middle-class life helped return a sense of normalcy to a country torn apart by conflict. The Invalid portrays Henry’s ailing fiancée, Kate White, of Philadelphia, who died in 1868. Filled with fresh-cut flowers, fruit, and cakes, and flooded with sunlight, the painting looks less like a deathbed scene than a portrait of a woman reclining in a well-appointed interior. The bottles of medicine on the nightstand are the only indication of White’s fate.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2005.189
People
Edward Lamson Henry, American (Charleston, SC 1841 - 1919 Ellenville, NY)
Title
The Invalid
Other Titles
Former Title: The Ailing Miss White
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1868-1870
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/6009

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
32.4 x 47.1 cm (12 3/4 x 18 9/16 in.)
frame: 50.2 x 65.4 x 5.1 cm (19 3/4 x 25 3/4 x 2 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.l. ELH [monogram]
  • monogram: lower left, paint, in artist's hand

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Dr. J. Dehaven White, Philadelphia, by descent; to Emma Zierden White (his nephew's wife). [Sotheby's, March 2002]. Private Collection. [Shannon's Auction House], sold; to Harvard Art Museums, 2005.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Daniel A. Pollack, Class of 1960, American Art Acquisition Fund
Accession Year
2005
Object Number
2005.189
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Publication History

  • Elizabeth McCausland, "The Life and Work of Edward Henry Lamson N.A., 1841-1919", New York State Museum Bulletin, University of the State of New York (Albany, NY, September 1945), no. 339, p. 160, n. 71 and p. 111
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), pp. 138-39, cat. 103, ill. p. 139

Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 03/20/2023

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu