"My First Painting"ca. 1868
Mary Vaux Walcott painted this in about 1868. It is now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. More about this work
About this work
Mary Vaux Walcott painted this in about 1868. It is now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
How it was made
- Watercolour
- Pigment in gum arabic, thinned with water and laid in transparent washes. Nothing white is painted: the light is the paper showing through.
Mary Vaux Walcott
born Philadelphia, PA 1860-died St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada 1940
Mary Vaux Walcott came from a Philadelphia Quaker family and spent summers in the Canadian Rockies, where she photographed glaciers and began painting wildflowers in watercolour. In 1914 she married Charles Doolittle Walcott, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, which published her five-volume North American Wild Flowers in 1925. Her careful, botanically accurate plates made the series a landmark of American flower illustration.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Smithsonian American Art Museum has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1970.355.766
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Graphic Arts
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
Report this work
More by Mary Vaux Walcott
All their works
Close in colour
