Brown’s sentimentalised portrayals of street urchins, reproduced and published by the thousands, made him the richest and most celebrated genre painter in turn-of-the-century America. Emigrating from England to New York in 1853, Brown trained as a glassblower in Brooklyn before studying fine art at the National Academy of Design. His 1860 painting His First Cigar launched his national reputation as the Bootblack Raphael, and lithographers quickly began copying his images of young white shoe shiners, vendors, and servants. Although Brown claimed to paint truthfully, like a reporter, he in fact falsified the grim reality of urban immigrant life and, catering to Victorian tastes, showed his subjects not as sad, emaciated, and hungry, but as cheerful, spunky, and resourceful; their ragged clothing was meant to be picturesque, their grime, cosmetic.
[Heritage Auctions - Oil on canvas, 64.1 x 68.6 cm]