Below you'll find a list of all posts from 2012
Recto – George Caleb Bingham When George Caleb Bingham painted her portrait in 1835, Dinah Allen was 32 and pregnant with her eighth child. Her ancestors included Captain William Clark of the Lewis & Clark Expedition and James Clark, a governor of Kentucky (1836 – 1839). When her husband Shubael died in 1841, Dinah remained at their plantation, Allen’s Landing, …
When the current owner purchased this new George Caleb Bingham portrait at an art auction, the artist was listed as unknown. But the name of the subject was taped to the back of the frame: Sarah Ann Elliott (Sallie), Mrs. Henry Neill and that clue, along with the owner’s extensive genealogical research were enough to discover the truth about the painting. Both maiden …
James Sidney Rollins was George Caleb Bingham‘s “warmest personal friend.” This re-discovered Bingham portrait descended in the Rollins family to a great-granddaughter who had always been told it was the work of an unknown artist. She wanted the people of Missouri to have it. When the painting arrived in the Midwest, I immediately recognized the artist as George Caleb Bingham. Other experts and …
Bingham scholar E. Maurice Bloch listed the portraits of Mrs. Ephraim Allison (Ruth McCarty), 1872 (A383) and Tom Edward Allison, 1872, (A384) in his definitive work, George Caleb Bingham Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonne, (University of Missouri Press, 1986). As I worked with lists and images of Bingham portraits, I wondered, wouldn’t Bingham have painted Mr. Ephraim Allison as well? The thought passed, barely noticed. Years later, …
In the mid-1940s, as art historian E. Maurice Bloch researched paintings of George Caleb Bingham, he twice wrote the owner of the portrait John. A. Trigg (1811-1872). Bloch knew that Trigg’s first wife was the artist’s first cousin, Rebecca Bingham (1821-after 1850). He knew that the couple lived in Missouri, in Blackwater Township, not far from the home of the artist and his first wife, …
