More about Ernesta (Child with Nurse)
Contributor
In Ernesta, Cecilia Beaux painted her niece taking her first steps.
Cecilia Beaux often opted for family and friends to be subjects in her paintings. In Ernesta, Beaux paints her favorite subject, her niece, Ernesta Drinker. It’s the sweetest thing to witness, a baby Ernesta clinging safely onto her nurse’s hand. This painting is the first in a timeline of images Beaux painted of her. There’s another Ernesta painting when she’s a mature young woman in 1914.
Ernesta’s mother was Beaux’s oldest sister, Aimee Ernesta. Her father bequeathed Ernesta with the boozy-sounding surname of Henry Sturgis Drinker, though they were anything but. Ernesta grew up with five siblings, and they all promised to be a real handful for their parents. It’s a good thing they had their Irish nursemaid, Mattie, on hand to help. Beaux wasn’t going to leave her out of the painting.
Like the Impressionists, Beaux was experimental when it came to cropping the painting, which only reveals Mattie’s hand holding on to Ernesta’s, the eldest of the Drinker daughters. Mattie was part of the Drinker household for many years, having raised four of the six children. She sounds to be as much part of the family as Beaux does.
Beaux had a close relationship with her nieces and nephews. Ernesta said of her aunt, “I was her child for weeks at a time, staying with her in Gloucester, minus nurses or governess.” That’s one way of helping out your sister and brother-in-law with their carnival of kids. When Beaux wasn’t painting her niece, Aimee managed to carve out some time and plan trips away with her daughters Ernesta and Catherine.
For most of her career, Cecilia Beaux exclusively painted portraits. At the time, portrait painting paid the bills better than other genres, but it also seems like painting anything other than people just wasn’t a thrill for her. In fact, Beaux began her career painting by children’s faces on porcelain. You’ve gotta start somewhere, am I right?
Sources
Sources
- Esaak, Shelley, “Artists in 60 seconds: Cecilia Beaux,” Thought Co., October 3, 2019. Date accessed May 27, 2020. https://www.thoughtco.com/cecilia-beaux-quick-facts-183340
- Galitz, Kathryn Calley, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016.
- Kiely, Alexandra, “The beautiful portraiture of Cecilia Beaux,” Daily Art Magazine, January 9, 2018. Date accessed May 27, 2020. https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/portraiture-of-cecilia-beaux/
- Klekowski, Ed, Klekowski, Libby, Americans in Occupied Belgium, 1914-1918: Accounts of the War from Journalists, Tourists, Troops and Medical Staff, Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014.
- Madsen, Annelise K. , Broadway, Mary, John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2018.
- Perricelli, Lynn Moss, “Oil painting: Cecilia Beaux’s legacy,” date accessed May 27, 2020. https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-mediums/oil-painting/oil-painting-ce…
- Sicherman, Barbara, Green, Carol Hurd, Notable American Women: The Modern Period: a Biographical Dictionary. Radcliff College, 1980.
- Weinberg, Helene Barbara, American Impressionism and Realism: A Landmark Exhibition from the MET. Sydney: Art Exhibitions Australia and Queensland Art Gallery, 2009.
