Josephine and Mercie

Josephine and Mercie from 1908 is a characteristic Tarbell interior, depicting two women (likely members of his family) in a sun-filled room with the compositional elegance and tonal refinement that define the Boston School at its best. Tarbell's interiors are distinguished by the way filtered light enters through windows and creates a luminous atmosphere that envelopes the figures, and Josephine and Mercie demonstrates this quality at its most accomplished. The 1908 date places this in the period when Tarbell was the most influential painting teacher in Boston, and his personal style was at its peak.

Josephine and Mercie is one of Tarbell's most accomplished interiors and one of the best examples of the Boston School at its peak. The painting demonstrates the qualities that made the Boston School the most refined alternative to the Ashcan School's urban realism: filtered light, compositional elegance, tonal refinement, and an atmosphere of domestic repose that distinguishes Boston Impressionism from its French counterpart.

Josephine and Mercie is Tarbell's Boston School interior at its peak: two women in a sun-filled room with the compositional elegance and tonal refinement that define American Impressionism at its most refined. The 1908 painting demonstrates the qualities that distinguished Boston Impressionism from the Ashcan School's urban realism.