What does the letter mean, Mother?
Date1879
Artist
Felix Octavius Carr Darley
(American draftsman and illustrator, 1822–1888)
Illustration CitationVariant of illustration in Compositions in Outline from Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, by F. O. C. Darley (Boston: Houghton Osgood and Co., 1879)
MediumWatercolor on illustration board
Dimensionssheet: 16 × 21 1/8 in. (40.6 × 53.7 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Douglas Davidson, 1938
Object number1938-140
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextNathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is about Hester Prynne, a young woman of a Puritan community who bears an illegitimate daughter. Since she will not reveal the name of the child's father, her punishment is to wear a scarlet "A" on the front of her dress. Here, Hester's child's questions the meaning of the letter.In 1851, when cultural commentators were consicous of an emerging American artistic identity, one critic noted in the bulletin of the American Art Union that Darley's work combined "a recognizably sophisticated American point of view with an exceptionally sophisticated style of drawing." Darley's career spanned a period when literacy rates increased, and advancing print tecnholgies made mass-produced books and magazines more accessible. Publishers often mentioned Darley's name in advertisements, beginning a trend to credit illustrators who became recognized by the reading public.
This drawing appears to be the basis for a slightly-altered version that appeared in the 1879 publication.
