Samuel M. Shaver
(American/Tennessee, 1816-1878)

"Portrait of Everett Maxwell Walker (1858-1859) and Mary E. (Lillian) Walker (1854-1938)", ca. 1859

oil on canvas
unsigned, handwritten inscription identifying sitters en verso of stretcher.
Framed.
40" x 30", framed 47" x 37"

Literature: Caldwell, Jr., Benjamin H., Robert Hicks and Mark W. Scala, Art of Tennessee, Nashville: First Center of the Visual Arts, exhibition catalogue, 2003.

Notes: Everett Maxwell (1858-1859) and Mary E. (Lillian) Walker (1854-1894) were children of Dora Pearson Moses and Joseph Hardin Walker of Knox County, Tennessee. Mary E. (Lillian) married Rufus Phillips Williams (1851-1911) in 1894 and eventually moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where her mother, Dora, had settled. Everett tragically passed away of pneumonia shortly after the group portrait of him and his sister was painted.

The Tennessee portrait artist Samuel M. Shaver favored the playful device of the child with one bare foot. In this portrait, Everett has taken off his sock and shoe for the duration of having his portrait painted. The children are seated outdoors amidst the Eastern Tennessee landscape.

Previously professionally cleaned and restored; some distortion of the canvas upper left (tree); appears to be small horizontal repaired tear and several small areas of inpainting upper right (sky and trees); small areas of inpainting upper mid left (boy's ear and cheek and lower mid left (bare foot); signs of inpainting lower mid right (blue dress). Modern frame with some surface marks, nicks and abrasions. Canvas size is 42" x 32".