Miniature Portrait of Lelia Skipwith Carter Tucker (Mrs. St. George Tucker)(1767-post 1833)
Date1798
Artist
Pierre Henri (ca. 1760-1822)
OriginAmerica, Virginia
MediumWatercolor on ivory
DimensionsSight: 2 7/16 x 1 15/16in. (6.2 x 4.9cm) and Framed (Excluding hanging ring): 4 13/16 x 4 1/8in.
Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund
Object number2007-45,2
DescriptionA bust-length miniature portrait of a woman wearing a gathered, very high-waisted blue dress having a white collar trimmed with a white lace ruffle. The collar fits tightly together, covering her chest completely. She also wears a white ruffled cap trimmed with a blue ribbon. Her eyes are blue, her hair entirely covered by the cap. The background is stippled overall.The rectangular-shaped black-lacquered papier mache frame has an oval aperture and brass mounts, the brass hanging ring at top center being attached to a casting of an abstract ornamental motif, i.e., it does not match the acorn on the companion portrait's frame. The frame is believed to be a replacement dating from the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
Label TextThis miniature and another, of the subject's second husband, St. George Tucker (1752-1827), were painted by the peripatetic, French-born artist, Pierre Henri, who is known to have worked in Alexandria and Richmond in Virginia, as well as in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New York, and New Orleans.
Lelia Skipwith was the daughter of Sir Peyton Skipwith. She married, first, George Carter, by whom she had two children, Charles and Mary (or "Polly"), born respectively ca. 1784 and ca. 1788. Sometime after her first husband's death, Lelia began tutoring Anne Frances Tucker (1779-1813), the eldest child of St. George Tucker, whose first wife, Frances Bland Randolph Tucker, had died in 1788. Lelia and the widowed St. George began a courtship in the fall of 1790 and married in 1791.
InscribedInscribed at lower right: "P.H./98".
A dust cover from the back of the frame is inscribed in script in ink: "Mrs. St. George Tucker (born/Frances Bland daughter/of Theodoric Bland of [sic]/Frances Bolling) was the/widow of Colonel John/Randolph and mother/of John Randolph of/Roanoke.) Her second/marriage to Colonel St/George Tucker LLD (1752-/1827) who afer a distinguished judicial career/became chancellor of/William and Mary/College took place in 1778,"
The handwriting appears to match that on the dust cover of 2007-45,1; the inscription may date to the 1940s or 1950s. The dust cover on 2007-45,2 was detached from the miniature per se prior to acquisition by CWF, but the two parts were acquired together.
The inscription is but one of several instances in which St. George Tucker's two wives have been confused. (A piece of furniture in the collection, acc. no. 1979-5, arrived with a similarly garbled Tucker history).
ProvenanceAccording to Elle Shushan, who bid on 2007-45, 1 and 2007-45, 2 at the Kabe auction on 4/26/2007 on behalf of CWF, the two likenesses once belonged to Edna Alling Doherty of 140 Riverside Dr., New York, NY. The Kabe auction emptied a house in Connecticut (town name not yet known) that, Shushan speculates, had belonged to one of Edna's children. The auction included quantities of receipts covering miniatures Mrs. Doherty and her husband (name unrecorded) had bought in the 1940s, but none matched the description of this pair. As documented by the miscellaneous receipts, many miniatures acquired by the Dohertys came from dealer Samuel Spergel, who had galleries at 32 South 18th Street in Philadelphia and 120 East 57th Street in New York City; therefore, it is conceivable that 2007-45, 1 and 2007-45, 2 passed through his hands.
