Portrait of Martha Atkins Barnes ( Mrs. Jabez Barnes)(1739-1834)

DateProbably 1834

Artist Lucius Barnes 1819 - 1836

MediumWatercolor and ink on heavy wove paper

DimensionsPrimary Support: 7 1/2 x 6 1/2in. (19.1 x 16.5cm) and Framed: 12 1/16 x 11 1/8in.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1935.300.2

DescriptionFull length portrait of elderly woman in profile facing left seated in a ladder back, rush seat side chair (painted brown) on a yellow and brown shaded floor. The subject wears a black dress, black shoes, a blue shawl trimmed in black and red, a white cap trimmed in black, black spectacles, and she holds an open book presumably the bible, in her outstretched hands.
The 3 1/8-inch rosewood-veneered cyma reversa frame with a gilt liner and trim is possibly original.
Label TextMartha Atkins Barnes, second daughter of Martha and Thomas Atkins, was born in Middletown, Connecticut, on June 17,1739. In 1758 she married Jabez Barnes, a seafaring man, and the couple had ten children, eight of whom were living at the time of Jabez's death in 1782. Martha died in Middletown at the age of ninety-five on October 10, 1834, presumably the same year in which this portrait and at least seven others of her were created by her fifteen-year-old grandson, Lucius Barnes.
In the year of Martha's death, her pastor, John Cookson, wrote and locally published her memoir, which provides insight into her character. As Martha matured, she became deeply religious and affiliated herself with the Strict Congregationalists, later joining the Baptist Church in 1805. Her husband did not sympathize with her beliefs and often forbade her to attend services. Once when he threatened to take her life if she disobeyed him, Martha asked her minister whether she should seek refuge at her sister's house. He replied: "No, go right home, and if he shoots you, you will be in heaven before morning."
One of the recorded portraits of Martha Atkins Barnes is tipped into a copy of Cookson's Memoir. Perhaps the others were also meant to illustrate copies of the book. According to an undated verso inscription, at least one likeness was supposedly "made from life."
The artist, Lucius Barnes, was the son of Martha Barnes's youngest son, Elizur. He had been crippled at the age of seventeen. His eight recorded profile drawings of his grandmother, which show her either walking with a cane while sometimes smoking a clay pipe or seated in a chair reading the Bible, inspired at least two other versions of this well-remembered Middletown personality by other family amateur artists.

Inscription(s)In ink on the reverse are doodles and partial sketches of two heads, various initials ("H," "D," "L"), and the name "Martha."Mark(s)No watermark found.ProvenanceStephen Van Rensselaer, Williamsburg, Va.; bought from the preceding by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; given to CWF by Rockefeller in 1939.