Portrait of a Young Woman

Portrait of a Young Woman

Mather Brown

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mather Brown was born in Boston, son of a clockmaker and descendent of several famous New England divines, including Cotton Mather and Increase Mather. After working as an itinerant portraitist in New England, Brown went to London in 1780 to study with Benjamin West. He became a fashionable portraitist in various provincial English cities. The stylishly dressed young girl looks up from her music at the piano, which bears the 1797 label of the London firm of Kirkman.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.