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Elizabeth Hastings Henshaw
Elizabeth Hastings Henshaw
Artist (1772 - 1848)

Elizabeth Hastings Henshaw

Date1839
DimensionsFramed: 22 5/8 × 17 1/2 × 3/4 in. (57.5 × 44.5 × 1.9 cm) Sight: 18 3/8 × 13 3/16 in. (46.7 × 33.5 cm)
Object numberN0259.1961
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextAs a minister’s wife, Bascom began drawing as a pastime, but was soon traveling to other areas to draw portraiture on commission. She kept a daily journal in which she recorded making over a thousand portraits for money, services in kind, and as tokens of affection. Bascom’s portrait of her sister-in-law Elizabeth is particularly noteworthy for the artist’s sensitive treatment of the delicate lace bonnet and facial features. Elizabeth was born in 1791 and married the artist’s brother Horatio Henshaw in 1816. They settled in Leicester, Massachusetts, where Ruth Bascom likely executed this portrait.
BibliographyD'Ambrosio, Paul S. and Charlotte M. Emans, "Folk Art's Many Faces: Portraits in the New York State Historical Association," Cooperstown, NY: NYSHA, 1987: 33-35, and illustration number 10 on page 33.

Jones, Agnes Halsey and Louis C., "New-Found Folk Art of the Young Republic", NYSHA, 1960: 24-25, illustration number 52A and 52B.

Robin Jaffe Frank, Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures (exh. cat. CT: Yale University Press, 2000).

Jack Larkin, Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, and David Jaffee, Meet Your Neighbors: New England Portraits, Painters, and Society 1790-1850 (exh. cat. Old Sturbridge Village, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), pp. 61, figs.18-19; pp.74-75, 84-85, 100-101, 111, 119.

Robert M Doty, By Good Hands: New Hampshire Folk Art (exh. cat. New Hampshire: University of New England Press, 1989).

Jean Lipman, Flowering of American Folk Art, (New York: Viking Press, in cooperation with the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974).

Peter H. Tillou and Paul Rovetti, Nineteenth century Folk Painting: Our Spirited National Heritage (The William Benton Museum of Art, 1973), p.165.

Jean Lipman and Alice Winchester, Primitive Painters in America, 1750-1950 (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1950), p.31-38.
On View
On view
Horatio Gates Henshaw
Ruth Henshaw Bascom
1839
Eliza Jane Fay
Ruth Henshaw Bascom
1840
Charles Lewis Bingham
Ruth Henshaw Bascom
1844
Mrs. Starke's Brother Of Troy
Unidentified Artist
c. 1820
Emeline Boynton
Henry Walton
1845
New England Woman
Winthrop Chandler
1775-1785
De Mott Smith
Henry Walton
1841
Phebe Buxton
Ruth Whittier Shute
c. 1831
Unidentified Gentleman and His Wife
James Sanford Ellsworth
1852
John Berry
Mr. Thompson
c. 1815
Boy with Bird
Jacob Maentel
1815-1820
Separate Tables
Joseph H. Davis
c. 1835

5798 STATE HIGHWAY 80
COOPERSTOWN NY, 13326
607-547-1400

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