Josiah B. Woods Jr.,

ca. 1838

Although unsigned, this impressive and possibly posthumous portrait (the sitter died in 1838 at age 5) is attributable to Field on stylistic grounds. The lively palette and the subject’s blunt hands and pointy ears are hallmarks of the artist’s early work. Moreover the distinctive patterned carpet and the boy’s pose, attire, and whittling implements are repeated in the leftmost figure in Field’s masterwork, Joseph B. Moore and Family, of similar date. While the parapet, column, and red drapery can also be found in other Field portraits, the distinctive background vista may allude to the view from the Woods family residence in Enfield, Massachusetts, overlooking the Swift River, a site subsumed a century later in the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir.