The Cushing Parlor

Details

Descriptive Terms

paintings (visual works)
architectural drawings (visual works)
oil paint (paint)
canvas
Painting

Label

"Cherished Possessions": In 1878 Ella Emory, her sister, and her niece, Alice Cushing, spent the summer at the Cushing family's ancestral home in Hingham, Massachusetts. There, Emory painted four interior views of the house, including this one showing the west parlor with Alice Cushing seated on a sofa and two kittens curled up on a window seat.
The Cushing house was built about 1678 or 1679 and updated in the 1740s. The painting shows the layers of history typical of New England homes. The seventeenth-century summer beam on the ceiling was boxed in with boards in the eighteenth century. The clock, mirror, sofa, and footstool were from the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The wallpaper, window seat cushion, carpet, and bearskin rug in front of the sofa were the newest additions when this painting was completed.

"Artful Stories": For some New Englanders home was the place their parents, grandparents, and many generations before them had lived. In 1878 Ella Emory, her sister, and her niece, Alice Cushing, spent the summer at their family’s seventeenth-century ancestral home in Hingham, Massachusetts. During the visit Emory painted this view of the west parlor with Alice seated on a sofa, two kittens curled up nearby, and a mishmash of furnishings accumulated over the decades.

Maker

Emory, Ella (Artist)

Location of Origin

Hingham, Massachusetts, United States

Dimensions

15 x 20 (HxW) (inches)

Credit Line

Museum purchase with funds provided by an anonymous donor

Accession Number

1994.21

Places

Massachusetts (United States)
Hingham (Plymouth County, Massachusetts)