This Little Pig Went to Market

CC0 Public Domain Designation

c. 1857

Lilly Martin Spencer (American, born England, 1822–1902)

Lilly Martin Spencer positioned women at the center of her vivid portrayals of the everyday activities of white, urban, middle-class households like her own. This Little Pig Went to Market features a mother and child (modeled by the artist and her son William Henry) reciting a playful nursery rhyme. The game celebrates their emotional bond while also hinting at the larger world that the boy will eventually join.

Establishing herself professionally in Cincinnati and relocating to New York in 1848, Spencer supported her large family with her art. One of the most popular US artists of the mid-19th century, she worked hard throughout her career to translate this success into financial security.

Status: On View, Gallery 173
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Lilly Martin Spencer
Title: This Little Pig Went to Market
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date: c. 1857
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed lower left: L. M. Spencer / pinx
Dimensions: 61 × 50.8 cm (24 × 20 in.)
Credit Line: Roger and J. Peter McCormick Endowment Fund; through prior gifts of the George F. Harding Collection and the Chicago Normal School Alumni
Reference Number: 2021.1
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/259839/manifest.json

Cosmopolitan Art Journal 3, no. 5 (Dec. 1859): 247.

New York, Cosmopolitan Art Association, Düsseldorf Gallery, Dec. 1859 [?]–Jan. 31, 1860, no. 1.

Cosmopolitan Art Association, Ohio and New York, by Dec. 1859 [engraving of work reproduced in Cosmopolitan Art Journal 3, no. 5 (Dec. 1859): frontispiece]; Elizabeth Wilt Collins (born Elizabeth Wilt Hertzog; Mrs. E. W. Collins, 1804–1876), Collinsville, IL, Jan. 1860 [as premium given to a subscriber by the Cosmopolitan Art Association; Cosmopolitan Art Journal 4, no. 1 (Mar. 1860): i]. Letitia Duff Dyke (born Letitia Duff Reuter, 1925–2018), Pittsburgh, PA, by 2018; estate of Letitia Duff Dyke; sold, Concept Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, Sept. 28, 2019, lot 230, as This Little Piggy. With George Turak (dealer), Philadelphia, by Dec. 2019; sold to Godel & Co., Inc., Bedford, NY, Dec. 2019; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2021.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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