This work belongs to Indiana's 1962 Polygon series, small paintings featuring a numeral from 3 to 12 placed inside a polygon of the corresponding number of sides (i.e. 3-Triangle, 4-Square, etc.). The series features extensive wordplay, with references that are playful, personal, literary, and alliterative. The central circle in Polygon: Heptagon reads “Seven / Hepzibah.” “Seven” refers to The House of Seven Gables, the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1851 novel about the decline of the Pyncheons, an old New England Family. “Hepzibah” is a reference to Hepzibah Pyncheon, the character who inhabits “the House of Seven Gables.” The painting continues Indiana's ongoing tribute to the writers of the American Renaissance, which included works incorporating lines from Walt Whitman (Year of Meteors), Herman Melville (Melville), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (The Calumet).
