Mrs. Mayer and Daughter

Ammi Phillips

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Phillips pursued a long and successful career over fifty years, taking to the road as an itinerant artist painting portraits of clusters of friends, relatives, and neighbors in New York State and New England. His stock in trade was the plain likeness, devoid of shadows or modeling. Although he depended on repetitious formulas to work efficiently as he traveled the countryside, he was nevertheless able to individualize his sitters imaginatively. In "Mrs. Mayer and Daughter," Phillips’s masterful design abilities are evident in the cleanly contained forms of the mother and child, enriched by the use of brilliant, saturated color and careful detail.

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