Portrait of William Ezra Wright and His Sister Amelia

Born in 1813, Joseph Goodhue Chandler trained as a cabinetmaker in South Hadley, Massachusetts. When he was in his teens, he studied painting in Albany, New York, with the portraitist William Collins (1788–1847). In 1840 Chandler married fellow artist Lucretia Ann Waite (1820–1868). In 1852 they settled in Boston, remaining there eight years until they moved to Hubbardston, Massachusetts, where they spent the rest of their lives. They are thought to have collaborated on several paintings throughout their long and productive careers. Chandler is best known for his portraits of children, painted in three-quarter and full-length format. He also produced several double portraits of children, such as this one of William Ezra Wright and his sister Amelia, in which the siblings are depicted next to one another in a tender hand-inhand pose. In Chandler’s portraits, his youthful subjects’ facial features and hair are painstakingly described and crisply rendered. While the children are often fashionably dressed, their clothing is less detailed than their facial features. Another characteristic of Chandler’s work is his placement of his portrait subject in a beautifully expansive, loosely painted imaginary landscape. These landscapes often depict the golden glow of a setting sun in the distant background. At the time of this painting, Amelia Wright was six years old, and her brother William was three. According to records accompanying the painting, their father was a farmer and a prominent member of the community in East Haddam, Connecticut.