The Children of Nathan Starr

Ambrose Andrews

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During a period of high child mortality rates, posthumous portraiture played a pivotal role in capturing the likenesses of lost loved ones. Andrews painted this memorial portrait of the children of Nathan Starr shortly after the death of the youngest son, Edward, who appears at center holding a gaming stick aimed at a flight of white birds in the distance. Depicted in the family’s home in Middletown, Connecticut, the children are bathed in a soft, heavenly light while they play a game of shuttlecock, a precursor to badminton.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art