The Raymond Children

Robert Peckham

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Congregationalist deacon, Peckham became a prolific painter in central Massachusetts, catering to the demand for portraits among the rising middle class. A self-taught artist, he adopted a forthright visual approach in which he depicted many compositional details with equal emphasis. In this double portrait, siblings Anne Elizabeth and Joseph Estabrook Raymond are exquisitely dressed, standing on an in-grain carpet, and surrounded by toys in the parlor of their family’s well-appointed home. Peckham was also a noted abolitionist and painted portraits of fellow antislavery advocates, including the Quaker poet John Greenleaf.

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