Self-Portrait

DateProbably 1841

Artist Jonathan Adams Bartlett (1817 - 1902)

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 33" x 27" (83.8 cm. x 68.6 cm.) and Framed: 40 1/2" x 34 5/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1976.100.2

DescriptionA three-quarter length portrait of a man standing and looking at the viewer. He grasps his coat lapel with his right proper hand, on the little finger of which appears a plain gold ring. In his proper left hand, he holds five brushes and a palette, the latter daubed with red, white, yellow, and black paints. He has dark blue eyes and dark eyebrows. His dark brown hair is parted on the proper left side and cut bluntly in front of his proper left ear; a narrow sideburn runs beneath his chin. He wears black trousers and a black coat with a wide, notched lapel, the collar turned up in back. He also wears a white shirt with a ruffled front, large black bow tie, and buff-colored waistcoat. A stickpin appears on his shirt front, an elaborately-framed miniature portrait of a woman. A black cord stretches diagonally across his torso and supports a small, gold, trumpet-shaped watch fob hanging below his waist on the proper right side. In the lower left corner of the picture, the top of a square table is visible; it is covered with a beige cloth edged in tasselled lace. On it are a black grinding slab, a palette knife, and a stone mortar. In the left background, another table is shown supporting a vase of roses. The right background is filled with a heavy red drapery, tied back at the right and trimmed with yellow fringe. A horizontal row of black dots appears just above the fringe in the red drapery.

The 4 3/4-inch splayed mahogany-veneered frame is original and has a 3/8-inch rounded black-painted sight edge and an ornamental brass hanger at center top. A 5/5/1976 file memo from former AARFAM curator Donald R. Walters noted that this frame (and the one for 1976.100.3) were "said to have been made by J. A. Bartlett himself," information that apparently derived from his phone conversation with descendant and former portrait owner William A. Bartlett.
Label TextJonathan Bartlett’s self-portrait provides a rare glimpse of a folk artist’s conception of himself and his vocation, just as it documents the tools of his trade. Artistic pride is evident in the prominent display of brushes, palette, palette knife, grinding slab, and muller, the cone-shaped device shown resting on the slab, used to crush dry pigment. Although clearly proud of his artistic abilities, Barlett (1817-1902) was a farmer and house carpenter by trade and also tried his hand at cabinetmaking, photography, music, and teaching. The original mahogany-veneered frames were reportedly made by him.

The painter signed and dated this companion portrait of his fiancée, Harriet A. Glines (1818–1893), whom he married in May 1842. The couple raised eight children plus three grandchildren left motherless by early deaths in the family. The Bartletts’ portraits descended in their family until 1976.

InscribedNo original markings found. Initials "JEM" printed in ink inside the upper left corner of the stretcher.
ProvenanceFrom the subject to his son, Everard Lyford Bartlett (1854-1933), South Rumford, Maine; to his son, William A. Bartlett, Rumford Center, Maine; to dealer Wayne Cyr [Norway, Maine?]; to Dr. J. E. Martin, Mexico, Maine; sold at auction at Robert Hall-Robert Foster Auctions, Newcastle, Maine, July 3, 1976; to Peter H. Tillou, Litchfield, Connecticut.

Exhibition(s)