Baby Worship, or Playing with Baby

Description:

“Baby Worship” was shown at the 56th National Academy of Design exhibition along with the portrait of Kate Field.  The catalog lists “Baby Worship as item 462.  It’s caption along with a sketch, provided interesting context for the painting. 

The corner cabinet still in the former Millet studio today is a prominent feature in “Baby Worship”

Millets painting of women gathered around a new baby, may be of his first child Kate.  It was painted in the Millet’s home and studio in East Bridgewater, Mass.  The home still exists and still has many of the same features shown in the painting. Specifically the corner cupboard, settle bench, which Frank used in many of his colonial genre works, and the small window above the people. The walls and other parts of the home actually were saved by Frank and his father from original Plymouth Colony homes that by that time were being torn down. Consequently, many of those early Massachusetts Colony home parts made of wood were saved and still exist today.

This old English settle bench is seen is many of the Millet colonial genre paintings including “Baby Worship.”

A nail presented to the author from one of the panels in the Millet Studio/home.  The wood panel walls were installed into the studio by Millet and his father, Asa, when they jointly built the studio just down the hill from the Asa Millet home.  The panels, according to family history, were salvaged from Plymouth Colony homes that in the mid 1870’s were being demolished and the Millet salvaged panels were installed in the Millet Studio/Home.

The Millet Studio/Home still exists in East Bridgewater Mass. today.  Below is a photo of Asa and Frank sitting outside the newly built studio in East Bridgewater.  Both of Millet’s parents were supportive of Frank’s desire to be a painter, but did insist that he get his BA at Harvard in Literature, in 1869 before he went to Europe to study.  Following Millet’s 2 years of study in Antwerp, Harvard granted Millet a Masters in Fine Arts.

The Academy of Arts and Letters in NYC, NY houses a large archive of Millet papers, photographs and artwork.  These photos are of the Studio, inside and out.

In the following photo one can see the very round tilt-top table and seat upon which the baby, likely Kate the Millet’s first child, sits in “Baby Worship.”