Click to enlarge

Against all odds, online research turned up a photo of the original painting shown in our posthumous daguerreotype [ Archive Image #3348 ]!! Sadly, it’s not part of our Archive, but was sold at auction in 2012 for around $12,000. The auction describes it as a circa 1840 unframed oil on canvas, measuring 47″ x 30″. If you look closely, you will see the boy is wearing a hoop earring, which I found interesting. Unframed and unsigned, though attributed to Joseph Goodhue Chandler, an itinerant painter who worked around northern Massachusetts in the 1840s.  Unfortunately the children are not identified anywhere on the work.