American
Victor Chapman, about 1890
Albumen print, 30.5 x 25.2 cm (12 x 9 15/16 in.)
This American photograph is a black and white albumen print. The image, which is vertical, captures a young child standing in a leafy setting, with an unfocussed background. The child, who has light skin and light hair with bangs, is wearing a long white or light-colored gown with short sleeves and a ruffled bottom. The child is facing toward us, with the left arm bent upward and the left index finger to the lips and the right arm bent at the elbow and facing forward. The name “Victor” is handwritten on the matting below the photograph.
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Commentary
This photograph memorializes Victor Chapman, the first American pilot to die in World War I and son to one of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s closest friends. After his death, the bereaved Chapmans presented Gardner with a small panel painting, Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, in Victor’s memory. She placed it on an easel in the Early Italian Room with a memorial wreath, but saved this photograph of Victor as an infant—close to the age of her own son when he died—for her personal archive.