"Mrs. Jacob Edwards"

DateProbably 1788

MediumWatercolor (with casein?) on wove paper

DimensionsPrimary Support: 16 1/4 x 13 1/8in. (41.3 x 33.3cm) and Framed: 19 3/8 x 16in.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1958.300.2

DescriptionFull-length, highly stylized portrait of a woman facing left, holding an oversized peach sprig in her extended right hand. She wears a white puffy cap, a white fichu and a full length floral patterned dress on a yellow ground. All against a blue background with a pinkish area near top and within an oval surround bordered all around by blue corn husk motifs against a white ground. The spandrels created in the corners of the paper by this framing configuration contain vine and floral elements painted in, green, blue, pink and opaque white.Label TextJacob Edwards is identified by an inscription and date on the reverse of the painting. They are not listed in the first census taken two years after the date indicated, and these etherial portraits are the only record of the Edwards' presence in Danbury, Connecticut in 1788. Although it is less uncommon in eighteenth-century portraits, this is one of the few portraits in which a man is depicted holding roses.Mark(s)According to information supplied in 1941 presumably by Halladay and Thomas (see Provenance), "the original backing(s) on... (these) portrait(s) carried both the name and date." The backings were not intact when the portraits were acquired in 1958.ProvenanceJ. Stuart Halladay and Herrell George Thomas, Sheffield, Mass. Halladay died in 1951, leaving his interest in their jointly-owned collection to his partner, Thomas. Thomas died in 1957, leaving his estate to his sister, Mrs. Albert N. Petterson, who was AARFAC's vendor.