Miniature Portrait of Louisa Avery Herrick (Mrs. William Herrick)(1785-1866)
Dateca. 1840
Artist
James Sanford Ellsworth (1803-1875)
MediumWatercolor on wove paper
DimensionsTBD [3 1/2" X 2 3/4" framed 3 3/8" x 2 5/8" (8.6 cm. x 6.7 cm.)]
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1963.300.3
DescriptionA half-length miniature portrait of an older woman shown in profile facing right, her near hand drawn up to waist level and holding a book in front of her. She wears a black dress with a white collar, along with a sheer, white, blue-ribboned cap. Gray "clouds" outline her head and create a contrast between her head and the background; other background "clouds," more vaguely defined, fill the background at and below waist level. The subject has brown eyes, and her brown hair, drawn back beneath her cap, appears to be parted in the middle.The 3/16-inch engraved brass frame is a twentieth-century replacement.
Label TextJames Sanford Ellsworth is best known for his numerous profiles, but he also rendered several full-face miniatures and a few full-scale portraits in oil on canvas. His style is an interesting blend of the real and the fanciful: his frank, representational, presumably realistic depictions of individualized subjects are, at the same time, characterized by distinctive conventions --- gray-tinted, scallop-edged, cloudlike aureoles that frame the heads of his sitters; related, cloudlike bases on which his half-length figures seem to be borne aloft; and curious, stylized upholstered chairs upon which more than half of his known subjects are enthroned.
Ellsworth presumably painted Louisa Herrick at the same time he painted her husband, William, and her nephew, William Herrick Avery, all of whom were residents of Montgomery, Massachusetts.
InscribedHand-written in block-style letters in watercolor in the lower right corner of the primary support is: "Ellsworth/Painter".
MarkingsNo watermark found.
ProvenanceFrom a descendant of the subject, Mrs. Florence Emery of Westfield, Massachusetts; to Robert Carlen of Philadelphia, who was CWF's vendor.
ca. 1845