Sometimes, if I wait long enough, solutions to portrait puzzles reveal themselves even when I’ve forgotten about them. It’s been about ten years since I first saw the portrait of Dinah Ayers Trigg (Mrs. Shubael Allen). I wondered then about the strange little hat she wore. George Caleb Bingham painted her in the spring, 1835. In 1859, he painted her granddaughter, Miss Annie Allen. Those …
Recto and Verso: Dinah Allen
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, …