William Sergeant KendallAmerican, 1869–1938An Interlude
May one see it?
Unknown: the museum keeps its counsel
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Washington, D.C., United States
The owner is known. Whether it is on view today, the museum does not say, and we were not trained to guess.
- In this state since
- Sep 25, 2026
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
About the painting
William Kendall had three daughters whom he loved to paint in tender moments with their mother, Margaret. Here, the closed curtain and open book suggest a bedtime story, but there is a tantalizing hint of another meaning in this image. Margaret Kendall turns her face away from her husband to focus her affection on her daughter, who looks out at us with a wide-eyed, almost haunted expression. The title suggests a quiet moment before something happens, and it is possible that this image foreshadowed the disintegration of Kendall’s family. When An Interlude was painted, the artist had begun a relationship with the adolescent niece of artist Albert Herter. Kendall eventually divorced Margaret, resigned his teaching position at Yale, and retired to Hot Springs, Virginia, with Christine Herter.
Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- 1909.7.36
What it shows
Sources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum: the museum's own open data · fetched 4 days ago
- Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0
