Delightful Folk Art
Small Double-Portrait
Brother and Sister  

Canandaigua, New York, circa 1838-1840.

Beautifully composed and rendered in watercolor with graphite on paper. Note the considerable painterly skill, showing fine crisp detail, yet with folky attributes that we love. Faint inscription on the back, and also from the original frame backing paper, indicate that the children are Jane McConnell (aged 9 years) and Willliam McConnell (aged 7 years). William, in blue dress with riding crop, and Jane, in long flowing dress with puffy sleeves and her hair styled in ringlets, are composed around their beloved and extra-nice rocking horse, a common child’s toy of that period.

The very capable artist was one of two sisters: Catherine or Agnes Jeffrey, both watercolor artists, who had immigrated to America from Edinburgh, Scotland to help take care of their brother’s children in Canandaigua, about 35 miles south of Rochester. A nearly identical portrait is in the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, labeled circa 1838-Agnes Jeffrey (so the attribution to Catherine on this one may be in error). The NY State University at Geneseo has a Jeffrey Collection, having had an exhibition in 1976 entitled "Art of Four Generations of Jeffrey Family Women". 

Exceptional condition with very minor foxing. Period (not original) gilt frame about 10 3/8 inches x 8 5/8. From a superb private collection of American folk art portraits.