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A particularly sensitive likeness, this portrait is unusual for the artist as the subject’s body is drawn in almost three-quarter view. Bascom chose this perspective to better display the subject’s locket which is inscribed, “In Mem[ory of] Geo. Washingt[on].” A typical mourning necklace worn by women and young girls during the Victorian era.
Exhibition History“Folk Art from the Collection of the New York State Historical Association,” Museum of American Folk Art, New York, NY, January 4, 2000 – February 18, 2000.
“Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures at Yale,” Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA, April 27, 2001 – July 3, 2001; Yale University, CT, October 3, 2000 – April 8, 2001.
“Grandma Moses and the ‘Primitive Tradition,’” Bennington Museum, Bennington, VT, June 11, 2011 – October 30, 2011.
“Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
BibliographyRobin Jaffe Frank, Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures (exh. cat. CT: Yale University Press, 2000).
Robert M Doty, By Good Hands: New Hampshire Folk Art (exh. cat. New Hampshire: University of New England Press, 1989).
Paul S. D’Ambrosio and Charlotte M. Emas, eds., Folk Art’s Many Faces (Cooperstown, NY: New York State Historical Association, 1987), pp.35-36.
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.
![Martha C. Parkins [Perkins?]](/internal/media/dispatcher/4619/thumbnail)
Attributed to
Ruth Henshaw Bascom
(1772 - 1848)
Subject
Eliza Jane Fay
(1832 - 1899)
Eliza Jane Fay
Date1840
DimensionsSight: 17 3/8 × 12 in. (44.1 × 30.5 cm)
Object numberN0288.1961
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 fondness for rounded forms is echoed in the curvilinear folds of Eliza Jane’s dress, her scallop-edged collar, and the outline of her hair swept up behind her ear pierced with a daisy-like earring. A particularly sensitive likeness, this portrait is unusual for the artist as the subject’s body is drawn in almost three-quarter view. Bascom chose this perspective to better display the subject’s locket which is inscribed, “In Mem[ory of] Geo. Washingt[on].” A typical mourning necklace worn by women and young girls during the Victorian era.
Exhibition History“Folk Art from the Collection of the New York State Historical Association,” Museum of American Folk Art, New York, NY, January 4, 2000 – February 18, 2000.
“Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures at Yale,” Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA, April 27, 2001 – July 3, 2001; Yale University, CT, October 3, 2000 – April 8, 2001.
“Grandma Moses and the ‘Primitive Tradition,’” Bennington Museum, Bennington, VT, June 11, 2011 – October 30, 2011.
“Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
BibliographyRobin Jaffe Frank, Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures (exh. cat. CT: Yale University Press, 2000).
Robert M Doty, By Good Hands: New Hampshire Folk Art (exh. cat. New Hampshire: University of New England Press, 1989).
Paul S. D’Ambrosio and Charlotte M. Emas, eds., Folk Art’s Many Faces (Cooperstown, NY: New York State Historical Association, 1987), pp.35-36.
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.
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