Portrait of Mary Briggs

Dateca. 1840

Attributed to Charles Burton (1782 - after 1847)

MediumWatercolor and pencil on wove paper

DimensionsOther (Primary support): 9 3/4 x 7 1/2in. (24.8 x 19.1cm) Framed: 13 1/16 x 10 7/8 x 1in.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1936.300.3

DescriptionA half-length portrait of a little girl, perhaps 6-8 years old, who sits (in a ladder-back chair with round finials) in profile facing left. Her chin-length blond hair is rather straight, curving under slightly at the nape of her neck with a corkscrew curl on her forehead; it is pulled back behind her ear. She wears a smocked blue dress with a low, white ruffled collar and elbow-length cuffs, and a double strand coral necklace. Her proper left arm curves forward to her lap, and she holds a small, dark blue bound book in her hand. Behind her, gray-painted wainscoting rises to about chin level. Above this is a rather dark, forbidding sky over a mountain landscape. Architecturally, this does not realistically represent a window ledge, but similarities to the backgrounds in 36.300.1-2 indicate that it probably was meant to be taken as one. A column stands along the far right side, its base not shown.
The 2-inch mahogany-veneered frame is a modern replacement that was crafted to match those on 1936.300.1 and 1936.300.2.
Label TextWhen purchased in 1936, this portrait and two accompanying ones of a man and a woman were described as "Mary Briggs" and "Mr. and Mrs. Briggs." Generally it has been assumed that the elder Briggses were husband and wife and that Mary was their daughter, but none of this has been verified. Although the portraits' known history originally provided only tenuous association with the Richmond, Virginia, area, this link has been reinforced by the discovery of numerous additional likenesses attributable to Burton, seventeen of which are believed to have been painted in Richmond about 1840.

Sixteen of the seventeen additional portraits represent Irish Quakers who emigrated from County Armagh and County Antrim early in the century. The backgrounds shown here appear in other portraits by the artist, some done in Richmond, some further west. Most incorporate some combination of draped window, paneled wainscoting, and a romanticized landscape view of mountains and water. Nine also include the marbleized column.
ProvenanceMaude Pollard Hull, Richmond, Va.; Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; Given to CWF by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.