On #InternationalWomenDay, from a family history from an 1828 Neagle portrait, a descendent, Dora Kelly Lewis (1862-1928), US suffragette. National Women’s Party treasurer. Arrested 5 times, hurled by guards headfirst into an iron bed, led hunger strikes, force-fed. Honored at the Capitol in 1921.
A Bingham or a Hughes?
Descendants of Mrs. David Andrews, Sr. (Margaret Baird) and her daughter Florence [Florie] (Mrs. John Taddeus Heard) wondered if George Caleb Bingham was the artist of their heirloom portrait. The descendants knew the portrait was painted in Boonville, Missouri, and they knew the sitters’ birth dates. The mother, Margaret Baird (Mrs. David Andrews), was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1817. …
Man in a Blue Vest
In the “Style of George Caleb Bingham” was the description of a portrait sold at auction several years ago. The winner bidder asked Fine Art Investigations if George Caleb Bingham created Man in a Blue Vest? Bingham? No. Not only did the technique differ, the painting had an entirely different sensibility. The dark-haired subject’s open collar, his dressing gown worn …
Recto and Verso: Shubael Allen
Recto – George Caleb Bingham Shubael Allen (1793- 1841) was New York native and a civil engineer. Before moving to Missouri by 1818, he helped build bridges in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. In 1822, in Boonville, Missouri, he married Dinah Ayers Trigg. They moved to Missouri’s western frontier where for several years they shared a dog trot cabin with Dinah’s sister …
Stories Behind the Portraits: Dorothy Sulger Kelly
Dorothy Sulger Kelly is a re-discovered portrait by John Neagle (1796-1865). Neagle painted her portrait around the same time that he portrayed John Haviland. Haviland was the architect for the original Franklin Academy, which was built across the street from the Kelly’s Philadelphia home. Neagle painted Dorothy with a vibrancy that compels her owner, a direct descendant, to sit with …
“Clear Perception and Practiced Eye”
On this day in 1873, George Caleb Bingham in Kansas City, Missouri, wrote to James S. Rollins in Columbia, Missouri, “I will call by as I go east, and assist in the proper framing of your portrait. It will be well to put on a new strong stretching frame, with another good thick canvas behind it to give that on which the …