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Boy with a Fishing Pole
From the collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
With his wide eyes, flushed cheeks, and curls, this young fellow evokes an ideal of boyhood. Childhood in the nineteenth century was seen as a too-brief stage in life, much like the fleeting moment the artist caught in this image. Boys were encouraged to exert themselves outdoors, with fishing, sledding, swimming, and ball games. An active life taught young boys to be competitive and tough, and helped them to grow into confident and successful men, a role that was not as far off as the boys might have imagined. (Mintz, Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood, 2004).
Smithsonian American Art Museum’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineBoy with a Fishing Pole. ca. 1840. Unidentified. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William Boswell in memory of H. Curley Boswell. CC0.
