Asleep on Duty

Date1874

Artist John Thomas Peele (British painter, 1822–1897)

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions45 5/8 × 35 3/4 in. (115.9 × 90.8 cm)
frame: 51 1/4 × 41 in. (130.2 × 104.1 cm)

Credit LineGift of Jane R. Worth, Charles F. Richards and Robert H. Richards, Jr., in memory of Robert H. and Lydia H. Richards, 1960

Object number1960-2

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPAINTING

Label TextJ.T. Poole was born in England but spent his early life in the United States where he trained at the National Academy of Design. He moved back and forth between the U.S. and the U.K. several times, finally settling in London in the second half of his life where he became a successful painter of sentimental genre scenes of children such as this one. It is a composition he repeated at least three times. Asleep on Duty, depicting a young girl asleep at the side of a baby’s cradle is typical of Peele’s work.