Portrait of Thomas Plummer

Date1825

Artist Edwin Plummer (1802-1880)

OriginAmerica, Massachusetts, Haverhill (probably)

MediumWatercolor, pencil, and cut wove paper on wove paper.

Dimensions4 11/16" x 3 5/8" (11.9 cm. x 9.2 cm.) unframed; 6 1/2" x 5 1/2" framed.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1931.300.3

DescriptionFigure waist length in profile, facing left, wearing black coat (drawn with gloss black, flat black, and white linear highlights) and a white stock. The face is very delicately drawn with eyebrows, side whiskers, and brown hair showing many individual thin strokes. The drawing of the ear is distinctive. The figure is cut out and pasted on the background. The background is drawn around the figure: brown-orange column to left, blue sky above, blue-green drapery to right above, brown and mottled blue-green partition behind (perhaps a stylized sofa).
Label TextThis portrait of his grandfather is the artist Edwin Plummer's only signed work recorded to date. Thomas was born in Haverhill on March 10, 1756; he married Elizabeth Chandler of Billerica, who was born August 6, 1760. She was said to have been a talented woman with a particular interest in literary matters. She died in Haverhill on January 11, 1839.

InscribedOn the verso of the primary support in penciled script at the top is "Aged 71 years" ; in inked script at the bottom of the primary support is "Thomas Plummer, Haverhill Ms/by Edwin Plummer his/grandson 1825"; an outline of a woman in profile appears in pencil in the lower half of the support, upside down and facing left with relation to the script. No watermark found.
ProvenanceFound in New York State; Edith Gregor Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York, N.Y.; Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; Given to C. W. by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.