Boy and Girl with Dog - Fredericksburg VA - Smithsonian Art Inventory Sculptures on Waymarking.com

A concrete statue of a boy and girl with a dog stands on a concrete base in the gardens at Chatham Manor across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, VA. A boy is standing while he plays a flute with both hands. A cloth is loosely draped around the front of his waist, but falls away from his butt. A tambourine is tucked in at his left side. A girl is seated to the boy's right as she peers up at him. She is leaning and slightly twisted to her left with her with her right leg bent further back than her left leg. Her right hand reaches to the head of a dog that is lying next to her and her left arm rests on a tree stump behind her. The dog has his rear legs tucked and his front legs stretched in front of him. There is no design or inscription on the pedestal. The sculptor is unknown, although according to Chatham a landscape introduction, the statuary came from Kenneth Lynch & Sons. It is dated c. 1930.

Chatham Manor was originally built in the late 1700s. It went through several owners and changes over the next 150 years, including devastating damage during the Civil War, until the 1920s when Daniel and Helen Devore bought the property and began its restoration. They hired a landscape architect who extensively used statuary on the grounds, most notably in the gardens as accents and to draw visitors along the paths.¹

Today, the National Park Service owns the property. Although changes have been made to the original, ornate landscaping, some of the sculptures from the Devore years still remain, including Boy and Girl with Dog. Chatham is open daily from 9 AM to 4:30 PM. Admission is free.

¹ Gardens lost in time « HORTUS 2

TITLE: (Boy and Girl with Dog) ARTIST(S): Unknown DATE: c. 1930 MEDIUM: Concrete CONTROL NUMBER: IAS VA000055 Direct Link to the Individual Listing in the Smithsonian Art Inventory: [Web Link] PHYSICAL LOCATION: In the gardens at Chatham: 120 Chatham Lane Fredericksburg, VA 22405 DIFFERENCES NOTED BETWEEN THE INVENTORY LISTING AND YOUR OBSERVATIONS AND RESEARCH: If the statue is the original from the Devore years, it is probably from several years earlier than 1930. The NPS auctioned many of the statues when acquiring Chatham in the 1970s, but replaced the originals from the same source, Kenneth Lynch & Sons, in the 1980s. If this is one of the replacements, it would be c. 1980.

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