Freake-Gibbs painter

This anonymous artist painted finely detailed portraits of children and adults in 17th-century New England. Their two surviving works here show a girl in a crisp white collar and a small boy in a dark coat, both captured with careful brushwork and rich fabrics. The sitters’ clothing and the style of painting place them in the Colonial American tradition. Tap Margaret Gibbs to meet a child who looks straight out of early Boston.