The Studio
Date1864
MediumOil on paper, mounted on board
DimensionsBoard: 21 × 14 inches (53.3 × 35.6 cm)
Framed: 32 × 26 × 3 3/8 inches (81.3 × 66 × 8.6 cm)
Credit LineMuseum Purchase with funds provided by Gari Melchers Collectors’ Society members Regina and Robert Cooper, Barbara and Carl Sassano, Lila and Dale Critz Sr., Amanda and Chris Everard, Linda and Tom McWhorter, and Celia and Larry Dunn.
Object number2023.8
CopyrightThe images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextJohn Ferguson Weir achieved early success in his career as an artist and art educator. Studying under his father, renowned artist Robert Walter Weir (1803—1889), he worked in a traditional, academic manner based in precise and highly detailed drawing. This painting appears to be a smaller pendant to Weir’s An Artist’s Studio (1864) which depicts another perspective of his father’s studio in West Point, New York. The interior provides a unique window into Weir’s practice of history-informed painting, embellished with objects typically associated with creating art during that period including armor, antique furniture, and the historic costume the Black subject, presumably a domestic servant, is wearing.
