Joseph H. Davis was active circa 1832-1837 in Dover, New Hampshire and nearby Maine towns. A naive or folk artist, he combined drawing with watercolor to produce one-hundred fifty surviving small-scale portraits of New England families, often husbands and wives seated on opposite sides of their tables, with perhaps the man reading a newspaper, and the woman holding a cat or sewing. They are surrounded by the artifacts of their lives the Bible, bowls of fruit, paintings on the walls, set off by bold designs on carpets and table cloths.

While many of the paintings are in the homes of the descendants of those depicted in the works, three paintings are in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and another in the Metropolitan Mus...