The Binning Children

Sir Henry Raeburn

National Gallery of Art

Two young boys sit side by side on some boulders with a cloudy sky behind them and dark tree branches above in this vertical portrait painting. The boys both have pale skin with flushed, round cheeks, short, light brown hair, and brown eyes. They wear matching russet-brown suits with rows of gold-colored buttons on their chests and white ruffles that pop out of their collars, white stockings, and black, laced up shoes. The boy on our right looks at us with his right hand on the other boy’s shoulder. That second boy sits on a lower rock and looks up at the first while draping one arm over the first boy’s lap. The second boy holds a plum-purple and powder-blue hat in one hand and a stick with a rope attached, perhaps a whip, in the other. Another hat lies on a boulder under the rope. A few crisp sage-green, deep yellow, and brown leaves have fallen to the ground at the boys' feet. The tree above and distant landscape beyond are loosely painted in hazy tones of yellow, smoky green, brown, and slate blue.