A Match Seller

Artist David Gilmour Blythe American, 1815–1865

Datecirca 1859

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions27 x 22 in. (68.6 x 55.9 cm)
Frame: 32 3/4 x 27 in. (83.2 x 68.6 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the State of North Carolina

Object number52.9.3

On View

On view

Provenance**Created United States, ca. 1859; collection of the artist. George David Thompson (1899–1965), Pittsburgh; [Haugh & Keenan Galleries, Pittsburgh]; [Victor D. Spark, New York]; sold to NCMA, 1952.Published ReferencesW. R. Valentiner, Catalogue of Paintings: Including Three Sets of Tapestries (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1956), no. 3.

Tobacco and Smoking in Art (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1960), cat. no. 13, illus. (b-w) 110.

American Paintings to 1900: Catalogue of Paintings, Vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1966), no. 4, illus. (b-w).

Patricia Hills, The Painters' America: Rural and Urban Life, 1810-1910 (New York: Praeger, 1974), discussed 115, illus. (b-w) fig. 140.

Patricia Hills, "The Painters' America: Rural and Urban Life, 1810-1910." Antiques 106 (October 1974), 646-647, discussed 647, illus. (b-w) fig. 2.

American Paintings from the Collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art (brochure) (Charlotte: Mint Museum of Art, 1975), no. 3.

Bruce W. Chambers, The World of David Gilmour Blythe (exhibition catalogue) (Washington, DC: National Collection of Fine Arts, 1980), discussed 51, illus. (b-w) fig. 25; cat. no. 136.

Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 242.

David M. Lubin, Picturing a Nation: Art and Social Change in Nineteenth Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), discussed 216, illus. (b-w) fig.117.

Barbara Groseclose, Nineteenth-Century American Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), mentioned 112, illus. (color) 111.

John Coffey, "From the Permanent Collection - The Presentable Poor: Images of Children," Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (March/April 2002), briefly discussed 10, illus. (color).

Sarah Burns, Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004), mentioned 70, illus. (b-w) 71, fig. 43.

Claire Perry, Young America: Childhood in 19th Century Art and Culture (published on the occasion of the "American ABC" exhibition listed in Exhibition History) (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, 2006), discussed 117, illus. (color) 118, fig. 96.

Kevin M. Murphy, "The Poor Artist? American Art in an Era of Financial Panic, Depression, and Speculation," in Taxing Visions: Financial Episodes in Late Nineteenth-Century American Art (exhibition catalogue), (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University and the Huntington Library, 2010), cat. no. 4, noted 44, illus. (color) 45, fig. 40.

Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Tobacco and Smoking in Art," October 14-December 4, 1960, no. 13, illus. (b-w) 110.

New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, "The Painter's America: Rural and Urban Life, 1810-1910," September 20-November 10, 1974; Houston, TX, Museum of Fine Arts, December 5, 1974-January 19, 1975; Oakland, CA, Oakland Museum, February 10-March 30, 1975, discussed 115, illus. (b-w) fig. 140.

Charlotte, NC, Mint Museum of Art, "American Paintings from the Collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art," September 7-October 19, 1975, no. 3.

Washington, DC, National Collection of Fine Arts, The World of David Gilmour Blythe (1815-1865), October 17, 1980-January 11, 1981; Rochester, NY, Memorial Art Gallery, February 7-March 29, 1981; Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Institute, May 9-July 5, 1981, no. 33, illus. (b-w).

Stanford, CA, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, "American ABC: Childhood in 19th Century America," February 1-May 5, 2006; Washington, DC, Smithsonian American Art Museum, July 4-September 17, 2006; Portland, ME, Portland Museum of Art, November 1, 2006-January 7, 2007 (see Published References for book published on the occasion of this exhibition).

University Park, PA, Palmer Museum of Art of the Pennsylvania State University, "Taxing Visions: Financial Episodes in Late Nineteenth-Century American Painting," September 28-December 19, 2010; San Marino, CA, The Huntington Library and Art Collections, January 29-May 30, 2011, cat. no. 4.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement

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