Interior with Portraits
{{short description|Painting by Thomas Le Clear}}
{{Infobox artwork
| title = Interior with Portraits
| image_file = Thomas Le Clear - Interior with Portraits - Smithsonian.jpg
| image_size = 300px
| alt = Two children pose for a photograph in an artist's studio.
| medium = Oil on canvas
| artist = Thomas Le Clear
| year = {{Start date|1865}}
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| condition = On display
| city = Washington, DC
| museum = Smithsonian Museum of American Art
| coordinates =
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Interior with Portraits is an 1865 genre scene painted by American artist Thomas Le Clear (1818–1882), commissioned by Franklin Sidway (1834–1920). It features Sidway's siblings, James and Parnell, posing for a photograph in an artist's studio. The children were painted posthumously based on family daguerreotypes, and the painting has been read as representing the tension between its medium and the emergent medium of photography. Interior with Portraits is currently held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
About
The painting features two children, James and Parnell Sidway, posing for a photograph in an artist's studio. The painting was commissioned by the subjects' older brother, Franklin Sidway.{{cite news |title=WNY painting joins elite class |author=Mike Vogel |newspaper=The Buffalo News |date=July 13, 1997}} Parnell was an adolescent when she died of illness in 1850, while James was a 26-year-old volunteer firefighter who died in a hotel fire shortly before the painting was commissioned.{{cite web |url=https://americanart.si.edu/videos/directors-choice-interior-portraits-thomas-leclear-48402 |title=Director's Choice - Interior With Portraits by Thomas LeClear |first=Elizabeth |last=Broun |work=Smithsonian American Art Museum |date=3 February 2014 |accessdate=14 January 2018}}{{cite web |url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/insight/tours/leclear/ |title=Director's Choice tour series: "Interior with Portraits" |first=Elizabeth |last=Broun |work=Smithsonian American Art Museum |date=2014 |accessdate=14 January 2018 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206035902/http://americanart.si.edu/collections/insight/tours/leclear/ |archivedate=6 February 2015 }}
The likenesses of the subjects as children were painted from family daguerreotypes. Some painters of the time regarded photography with suspicion, and refused to use photographs as references for portraits. The painting is filled with references to this tension. The children are surrounded by painted portraits, and the photographer's back is to the viewer with his face obscured. The girl appears to be supporting the boy and holding him still, as might have been necessary when posing a child for an early photograph due to the long exposure time.{{cite book |title=Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum |last=Pastan |first=Amy |year=2000 |publisher=Watson-Guptill Publications |location=New York, NY |page=68}} A dog is depicted just entering the studio, another acknowledgement of early photography's limitation to still subjects.
Smithsonian Museum of American Art
The painting is currently owned by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the purchase was made possible by a bequest of Pauline Edwards in 1993.{{cite web|title=Interior with Portraits by Thomas Le Clear|url=http://americanart.si.edu/education/insights/pictures/leclear/|website=americanart.si.edu|publisher=Smithsonian American Art Museum|accessdate=14 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170831061602/https://americanart.si.edu/education/insights/pictures/leclear/|archive-date=31 August 2017}}