New American Miniature by Ebenezer Mack
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.
