Wiley+Family,+The

Date: 1771
 * [[image:http://americanart.si.edu/images/2006/2006.12.2_1c.jpg width="381" height="290" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=75442"]] || Title: **The Wiley Family**

Artist: **William Williams** Born: Bristol, England 1727 Died: Bristol, England 1791

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 36 x 47 1/2 in. (91.4 x 120.7 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Diane and Norman Bernstein

Accession: 2006.12.2 || Painted in New York in 1771, this is one of Williams's finest known works. The family matriarch sits calmly and with great satisfaction in the centre, flanked by her two daughters. The older daughter, elegantly dressed for the occasion, holds a pet squirrel, a symbol of patience; it also alludes to her being of marriageable age. The presentation of colonial life as prosperous and idyllic suggests that the Wileys were eager to see themselves as old-world aristocrats in a new-world setting. Williams was a successful portrait and theatre-scene painter, mostly in Philadelphia and the Middle Atlantic colonies, between 1747, when he arrived from England, and about 1776, when he left as the revolution got under way. This painting, together with a portrait of Robert Hooper by Copley, was a gift from Diane and Norman Bernstein, long-time supporters and former board members of the museum.
 * Exhibition Label: **


 * Suggested Questions: **
 * How would you describe this family?
 * What did the family choose to include in the portrait (e.g. clothing, buildings, animals, etc.)?
 * Based on the painting, what can we infer about the family?

Squirrel Symbolism
 * Resources: **

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page "Wild" Colonial American Pets from //Out of this Century//
 * Links: **