AFA Winter 2019

Winter 108 www.afamag.com |  www.incollect.com Joseph Whiting Stock (1815–1855), Edward W. Gorham, 1844. Oil on canvas, 30⅛ x 25 inches. Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York; Gift of Stephen C. Clark (N0266.1961). Photography by Richard Walker. This somber colored, posthumous portrait of a child seated on a floor and playfully driving tacks into a chair seat has long been known by the title The Young Hammerer. The child has been identified as Edward W. Gorham of Springfield, Massachusetts, who was born in 1842 and died in 1844. Gorham was the son of Joseph W. and Laura N. Rogers Gorham of Springfield. According to Stock’s journal, Mr. Gorham, Deputy Sheriff of Hampden, paid the artist the sum of twelve dollars for this likeness of his deceased child. Posthumous portraits and photographs were commonly commissioned as memorials to lost children. Stock depicted the Gorham boy as a playful, energetic child, yet placed him in a dark, plain setting without the brightly patterned floor that typifies his portraits of children. Edward’s older brother, William Henry (1840–1889) was painted in 1842 by William S. Elwell (1810–1881) also in Springfield. Elwell was a student of Chester Harding which suggests yet another connection among the artists.