“Contentment”

Thomas Hovenden (1840-1895) was born in Ireland and in 1863 immigrated to the United States where he became a successful artist. He married Helen Corson, an artist whose family was active in the Underground Railroad. Several of Hovenden’s paintings feature African Americans in quiet domesticity. His neighbors were often his models. Hovenden’s most famous painting is The Last Moments of John Brown (1884).

“Martyr or Murderer? Hovenden’s The Last Moments of John Brown” (video and transcript by the Khan Academy)

Lee Edwards. “Noble Domesticity: The Paintings of Thomas Hovenden,”
The American Art Journal, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter, 1987), pp. 4-38

Anne Gregory Terhune. Thomas Hovenden: His Life and Work. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006