Portrait of David R. Peirce (1806-1885)

Date1845

Artist William Matthew Prior (1806-1873)

OriginAmerica, Massachusetts, New Bedford

MediumOil on tag board, framed and glazed

DimensionsUnframed: 16 1/8" x 12 1/8" and Framed: 22" X 18"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1989.100.3

DescriptionBust-length portrait of a man facing left. His dark brown hair is combed forward at the sides and up on top. He wears a dark brown beard trimmed to the rear of his jawline without a moustache. He wears a black coat, white shirt with turned down collar, and black, knotted stock. He poses before a plain medium green background.
Label TextWilliam Matthew Prior was shrewd, capable, and versatile. Surviving portraits and newspaper advertisements make it clear that he adjusted his method of painting to suit customers' pocketbooks. For bargain-hunters, he worked in the so-called "flat" style represented here. Freed from the necessity of rendering painstaking modeling and shading, the artist could work quickly --- and therefore cheaply.

Prior captured three generations of a single family in the five Peirce portraits owned by the museum. In addition to this representation of David R. Peirce, they show David's wife, Sarah Wilbur Peirce (1808-1871), David's parents, Abraham Peirce (1779-1850) and Mary Hafford Peirce (1779-1848), and a son of David and Sarah, Walter Adams Peirce (1838-1913). A bust to half-length pose that excluded hands was the cheapest option Prior offered in full-scale portraiture.

David Peirce was a native of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he worked as a house carpenter. He and his wife, Sarah, are listed with nine children ranging in age from twenty-two to two in the 1850 federal census for the town, so still more Peirce offspring may have been included in Prior's 1845 commission from the family.

InscribedPainted on the backboard is, "Mr David R. Peirce age 30/By W. M P[rior]/of B[oston]/18[45]." Below this, in pencil, is "1845".

ProvenanceCurrier (see "Vendor") stated that he acquired this portrait and its companions (1989.100.1, 1989.100.2, 1989.100.4, and 1989.100.5) from a descendant of the sitter: a sister of Arthur Thomas Peirce (b. 1915) of Berkley, Mass.