Parlor Painting Four Children at North Haven

Born in Salem, Mass., Frank Weston Benson (1862-1951) had a financially and artistically successful career as a painter and printmaker. This painting is one of many depicting his daughters outside their summer home, Wooster Farm, on the island of North Haven, in Maine (North Haven is not far from the Eustis’s summer retreat on Isle au Haut). Benson’s eldest daughter recalled these sittings: “When we were in North Haven, Papa would often have us put on our best white dresses and then ask us to sit in the grass or play in the woods. We thought it was silly and the maids made such a fuss when they saw our clothes afterwards.”