The Irish Girl

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Artist: Ford Madox Brown (British, 1821–1893)
Medium: Oil on canvas laid on board
Size: 11 1/4 x 10 7/8 inches (28.6 x 27.6 cm)
Museum: Yale Center for British Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

The cornflowers this young street vendor holds to her chest are for sale, and the paisley red shawl around her body is a type often made by child laborers, many of whom were Irish immigrants to Britain. Brown encountered this sitter while looking for subjects for Work, a larger painting about labor and class in Victorian England that he completed in 1865. Originally, The Irish Girl formed a pair with The English Boy, which depicts the artist’s five-year-old son wearing a hat and a smock and holding his toys. The two give contrasting views of childhood: his hair is brushed, hers is wild and unkempt; his gaze is innocent, hers is wily and self-possessed. His is a life of privilege, while she lives in poverty.

Text: Yale Center for British Art.