Portrait miniature enthusiasts are used to hearing about Charles Willson Peale as one of the early premier miniaturists in the United States, whose miniatures can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction.  Another facet of the man is revealed in this children’s book, called The Mystery of The Mammoth Bones, by James Gilbin, based on true-life events in Peale’s life. A review from “Publisher’s Weekly” summarizes the story:

“With the pacing of an ace detective, Giblin unveils the painstaking steps in artist and naturalist Charles Willson Peale’s 1801 discovery of mammoth bones. Through a third-person narration of Peale’s experience, Giblin establishes these fossils’ revolutionary importance to science, technology and social history, beginning with Peale’s exploratory digs, his assemblage of the first skeleton and its subsequent exhibition and controversy. Structuring the text in this way allows Giblin to deftly paint a turn-of-the-19th-century world and to demonstrate how this finding shook prevailing scientific and religious beliefs and contributed to current theories of evolution and extinction. Readers will devour the details that contrast Peale’s time to today, such as the harrowing journey from Philadelphia to upstate New York (it took a day and a half just to get from Philadelphia to New York City, before sailing up the Hudson River in the days before steam power), a trip that today takes three hours, and President Thomas Jefferson’s personal interest in and professional support of the excavation. Unfortunately, some details lack context, such as the original $200 pricetag of the bones without mention of what that sum could buy. After wrapping up this gripping mystery and its legacy, profusely illustrated with photographs of the mammoths and Peale’s own sketches, Giblin concludes with a brief biography of the Renaissance man Peale and a summary of theories on mammoths and mastodons. Fans of all things dinosaur will find much to explore here, and readers may well be infected with Peale’s pioneering spirit. Ages 8-12.”

The January/February 2010 issue of Antiques and Fine Art magazine contains an article called: “Informed Collecting: Portrait Miniatures of Children,” by Elle Shushan.  The link is as follows: http://bit.ly/6acjxS .

“What antiques restorer Maryalice Huggins knew when she stumbled across the mirror at a country auction in Rhode Island was this: She was besotted. Rococo and huge (more than eight feet tall), the mirror was one of the most unusual objects she had ever seen. Huggins had to have it.

The frame’s elaborate carvings were almost identical to a famous eighteenth-century design. Could this be eighteenth-century American? That would make it rare indeed. But in the rarefied world of American antiques, an object is not significant unless you can prove where it’s from. Huggins set out to trace the origins of her magnificent mirror.

Fueled with the delightfully obsessive spirit of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief, Aesop’s Mirror follows Huggins on her quest as she goes up against the leading lights of the very male world of high-end antiques and dives into the historical archives. And oh, what she finds there! The mirror was likely passed down through generations of the illustrious Brown family of Providence, Rhode Island.” –From Amazon.com

Maryalice Huggins worked for Israel Sacks, Inc, as well as a few large auction houses, and was well-versed in the high-end world of antiques—that is, until her detective work takes her down hidden passages that lead to encounters with such luminaries as Leigh and Leslie Keno, who don’t come off too well, as well as various experts from Christies and Sothebys. Huggins has a frank and pragmatic approach to the often conflicting advice and information she is given by the so-called scholars and experts, and takes a keen-eyed “question everything” approach which results in several fresh nuggets of academic research.

The history of the American family that apparently owned the piece in the 19th century is a mesmerizing story in its own right, and readers who’ve researched the artists, sitters, and owners of their own antiques will identify with her journey into the past.

The following anecdote about portrait miniatures recently appeared on the blog “Artists and Ancestors”  (http://portmin.blogspot.com/):

“I will leave you with a story that I was told just a few days ago. A man, very old today, remembers visiting in his grandfather’s jewellery store in Manhattan during the depression. The man remembers people bringing in scraps of metal to be sold for pennies.  And he remembers being just tall enough that he was eye to eye with a large jar his grandfather kept on a table. And the jar was full of little faces.  The faces of miniatures which were discarded for the small amount of the precious metal would bring.  All those tiny bits of art, lost to the world.”

The November 2009 issue of New England Antiques Journal has an article by Judith Dunn entitled “English Portrait Miniatures, 1525-1810.”  A miniature of a boy signed by Philadelphian expatriate artist Robert Hunt from Christine Archibald Portrait Miniatures is included in the article on page 26. The flipbook version of the magazine and the article may be viewed at www.antiquesjournal.com.

The philosophy of collecting and collections is something that always interests me, and I thought that a quote from Orlando Rock, Christie’s head of Private Collections, illustrated a facet of this.

“What makes the perfect collection?  The key is not to be too old-fashioned and to have a few masterpieces which stand out, around which groups can be coherently formed. But above all, a collection needs to have charm and be full of character; it very rarely works if it is bland or unimaginative. and in an ideal world, added into this mix would be a touch of glamour:  The allure of the cult of the personality….for me, every work of art tells a story–and it is the romance of the object, where it comes from, who commissioned it and who owned it subsequently–that is at the heart of what we do. “

I recently sold a signed miniature of a baby by Elsie Dodge Pattee (Augur) to her grand-daughter, who shared some information on her grandmother. The grand-daughter has Pattee’s autobiography, a large oil that was a Beaux Arts entry, and some late paintings. She says about Pattee:

“I can’t wait to show your miniature to my older sister Alison, who might be the baby in question, but the photo doesn’t look like another miniature we have of her. Alison, b. 1936, is five years older than I am, and is probably one of the last subjects Nana painted. Her retina detached before I was born and she didn’t pick up a brush again for at least twenty years, when another cousin, himself an artist, bought her oils and canvases, saying “Here, paint big!” In the interim, she taught history of art to all the kids in the neighborhood, in Old Lyme where she lived and we summered, and in Ossining NY, where we lived and she wintered. I’ve been through Egyptian, Greek and Roman art several times and have a lifelong love of art in general and those periods in particular. Nana also started to teach me drawing – as she had learned it, starting with charcoal and properly shading an egg – and my greatest regret is that I didn’t do more with her using more vivid colors later in her career. I spent a lot of time with her in the last decade of her life – late ‘60’s, early 70’s – just as I was getting involved in the Women’s Movement. We talked a lot about her life as, essentially, a single, independent, professional woman, which is what I was and am. “Nana, were you involved with the suffragists?” “No, I was too busy working for a living.”

This is a pastel portrait of Elsie done by husband Elmer (E. E. Pattee). He, too was an artist. In fact, I think they met in art school. However, because he ‘wanted to paint the way he wanted to paint,’ and because he had a family to support, he started the Paris American Art Store. It still exists, within walking distance of the Louvre. Attached is the companion self-portrait by Elmer. i’m not sure of the date, but the both look very young, so they were probably done around 1902ish. [see images below]. “

Upon querying if Elsie Pattee was related to John Wood and Edward Dodge, the grand-daughter replied:

“If the families were related there is no genetic connection because my grandmother was adopted; family lore has it from a Chelsea MA housepainter. His wife died, Nana was an infant and he couldn’t care for her, so she was adopted by Emma Harper Dodge and her husband, Mr. Dodge (whose given name I can’t remember. I do remember that he was an alcoholic and he never worked.) Emma was an offshoot of the Harper publishing company, and the family moved to Paris when Elsie was very young because a modest income went much farther in France than in America.”

A biography of Elsie Dodge Pattee is as follows:

Elsie S. Dodge Pattee (1876- c. 1975 ) was one of the leading miniature artists of her era. Born Elsie Stuart Dodge in Chelsea, Massachusetts, she studied at the Academie Julian in Paris, where she most likely met her husband Elmer Ellsworth Pattee, a painter and sculptor, She gave birth to their son, John Robert Pattee, and then apparently the family moved to New York, where she established her career painting landscapes and marine paintings, and specializing in portrait miniatures. Pattee exhibited at the National Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Society of Artists, the Lyme Art Association, the Mystic Art Association, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Panama Pacific Exhibition of 1915, and the Paris Salon. Along with Lucia Fairchild Fuller and Mabel R. Welch, she was one of the three regular instructors at the American School of Miniature Painters for the years 1913 to 1916, and was a member of the American Society of Miniature Painters. She died in Old Lyme, Connecticut in 1975. Her works may be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the  Smithsonian Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, among others.

An exhibition entitled  Dearly Departed: Women and Mourning 1680 – 1918 will be presented August 15th – October 31st at the Tioga County Historical Society in historic Owego, New York. The exhibition outlines the history of mourning,  told through over 600 pieces of jewelry and other commemorative artifacts.

Many of the pieces on display can be found in the book Mourning Art & Jewelry and in the book Georgian Jewelery 1714-1830. A very rare ring for Napoleon, possibly one of a kind, will be on display. In addition, a Charles the first miniature and two commemorative rings will be displayed. Other highlights include the following items of the popular Princess Charlotte: a ring, medals, cups and saucers, and a teapot.

Over a dozen original lithographs depicting death bed scenes of George Washington, Andrew Jackson and the New York funeral of O’ Connell are a part of the exhibit. Currier and Ives and other lithographers contributed to making it possible for the common person to have a colored memorial for their family depicting a commemorative stone which could be personalized. Examples will be on display.

A locally made Cruciform Casket patented design 1884 will be displayed along with stereo cards of the historic Evergreen Cemetery now on the national register.

A full color 48 page catalog is available for this exhibit from Tioga County Historical Society for $18.00 plus postage $3.25. (NY state must add tax $1.44 ). To order a copy:

Send a check or money order to:
TIOGA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
110 Front Street, Owego , New York 13827

Or visit the website and order via PayPal:  http://www.tiogahistory.org/dearly%20departed.html .

The show was covered on Fox News: http://www.wicz.com/news/video.asp?video=09+10+09+wom%2Ewmv%2Eflv&zone=News

A collector recently told me that my Christine Archibald Portrait Miniatures website was a “lighthouse in the night” for him–which tickled me so much that I wanted to post it here.

The Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia has  acquired a new portrait miniature, c. 1790, attributed to Ebenezer Mack (1765-1833).  One miniature by Ebenezer Mack is held in the Smithsonian collection, one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one in the New York Historical Society, and one in the Cheekwood Museum of Art.  Portrait miniatures by Mack are extremely rare, and little is known about him. 

Curator Kristen Zohn says: “A portrait at the New York Historical Society (NYHS) is used to make attributions to Mack. The NYHS piece came into that collection with an attribution to Mack, and it corresponds to a group of miniatures painted by a very distinctive hand. None of the miniatures that have been attributed to him have been signed, and so experts rely on easily recognizable “stylistic fingerprints.” Portrait miniature expert Edward Sheppard has stated that these include: the use of an unusually heavy stipple, both in the features and the background; the “woolly” look to the hair; the lack of strong modeling in the facial features; and a rather distinctive palette including the use of a brown and slightly grey stipple in the facial highlights.”  The initial attribution to Ebenezer Mack was made by long-time collector Don Shelton, when shown an image of the piece by the curator, and that attribution was then confirmed by several other experts.

Mack’s newspaper advertisements placed him in Philadelphia in 1785 and 1788, and in New York 1791 through 1808. 1  Brief mention of him is made in John Smibert: Colonial America’s First Portrait Painter:  “Trumbull rented [Smibert's Boston] studio in 1779 and made use of whatever remained of Smibert’s library…[and]…over the course of the next sixteen years at least six more artists–Mather Brown (1780), Ebenezer Mack (1780), Joseph Dunkerly [sic] (1780), Samuel King (c 1780-1785), John Mason Furnass (1785) and John Johnston (1795) held sway in the studio.” 2  This would also place Mack in Boston in 1780.

It is interesting to note that Joseph Dunkerley and Ebenezer Mack were recorded as using Smibert’s studio in the same year, as the slight similarities in their style could lead one to conjecture that Mack may have studied informally with Dunkerley.

Additionally, another prominent miniaturist of the time, William Verstille, was active in Philadelphia and New York in the 1780s, and his work at times bears a resemblance to Mack’s work .  Mack could have well crossed paths with Verstille during this time, and studied with him. The Ebenezer Mack miniature of  Jasper Ely Cropsey, c. 1794, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [below], looks very like miniatures by Verstille [see example below.]  It is also interesting to note that the gold frame for the Cropsey miniature by Mack looks very similar to several frames on Verstille’s miniatures. Verstille was a goldsmith as well as a miniaturist, and may well have made some frames for Mack’s miniatures, much as Paul Revere did for Dunkerley’s miniatures.

A further detail of interest is that the yellow vest embroidered with red and blue worn by the sitter in this newly acquired museum piece is virtually a twin to the embroidered yellow vest of a male sitter in a miniature by Ebenezer Mack sold by dealer Elle Shushan several years ago.  Ed Sheppard has conjectured that perhaps Mack kept this vest in his studio for male sitters to wear, and I conjectured that perhaps the two sitters were from the same family (wearing vests embroidered by the same sister or mother). It appears that in general yellow vests with embroidery were in vogue at this time, since another appears on a Verstille sitter (below), and the  Mack of Cropsey (below).

Portrait of a Gentleman, attributed to Ebenezer Mack, c. 1790.

Watercolor on ivory. 2 ¾ x 2 ¼ inches. Active in New York and Philadelphia 1785-1808.
Collection of the Columbus Museum, Georgia. Museum purchase made possible by
the Art Acquisitions and Restoration Fund.

Jasper Ely Cropsey, by Ebenezer Mack, c. 1794, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gentleman, by William Verstille, c. 1790. Note similarity of this frame to the Mack miniature of Cropsey.

1. Dates for newspaper advertisements via a previous website listing for an Ebenezer Mack portrait miniature, catalogued by Elle Shushan.

2.  John Smibert: Colonial America’s First Portrait Painter, by Richard H. Saunders, Yale University Press, p. 125.