TitleA Peasant Woman
Daten.d.
MediumOil on canvas mounted on panel
DimensionsUnframed: 21 3/4 × 17 3/4 in.
SignedSigned lower right: "Samuel Richards"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1505-P
Label TextIn 1895, Richards' widow, Louise (Parks) Richards, wrote to the Academy requesting the loan of her husband's picture "for exhibition by the Art Association of Indianapolis," presumably for the memorial exhibition of Richards' work which was part of the Art Association's annual exhibition that year. While permission was granted, it is not certain that the painting actually traveled to Indianapolis at that time, for it does not appear in the catalogue of that show. Even less clear is how and why the work entered the Academy's collection.The 1895 memorial exhibition included another painting, Holland Head, which the accompanying catalogue claimed was a "companion head" to the one "bought by the National Academy, New York." (Holland Head is probably the work now known as Old Peasant Woman which is in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art). It seems highly unlikely that the Academy actually purchased A Peasant Woman since the institution was not in the habit of buying works of art, especially those of non-members. Futhermore, the Academy's minutes, which would almost certainly have recorded such a transaction, make no mention of it. Obviously, as an aspiring academic painter, Richards would have been aware of and probably respectful toward the Academy; like most of his contemporaries, he would have thought it desirable to exhibit in its annuals. In fact, he sent at least one work, The Little Wanderer, from Munich for inclusion in the annual of 1884. The title of that painting seems to preclude it from being identical with A Peasant Woman. The history of the latter work remains a mystery.
Finally, and inexplicably, the painting does not appear in the 1911 inventory of the Academy's collection, although it is clear that the painting was part of the collection by that time.
