Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Art Detectives”
Louisa Watkins is the fourth post-Civil War posthumous portrait I have seen that depicts a person George Caleb Bingham may never have met or barely knew. To create the portrait, he had to rely on a photograph. The others are Sarah Ann (Sallie) Elliott (Mrs. Henry A. Neill), Julia George, and Julia’s brother, Richard Booker George. All four subjects sit facing forward, in the …
A specialist in Gilded Age portraiture suggested the artist of Lilian de Peyster Post Pulsford might be Wilhelm Heinrich Funk. Who? To be absolutely clear, no proof exists that Wilhelm Heinrich Funk was the artist of the portrait of Lilian dePeyster Post Pulsford Walker. But, his life story rivals Lilian’s, and art critics of his day praised his “fearless freedom of brushwork… general gusto, and joyousness and …
The art investigation into the life of Lilian dePeyster Post Pulsford Walker clarified why such a lovely portrait was sent to the auction block as a painting by an unknown artist, but had not revealed the artist. I returned to the two original clues. The first clue was an initial and name, probably inscribed by the artist. on the top canvas …
The painting’s subject, Lilian dePeyster Post Pulsford would have been taught that a lady’s name appears in the newspaper twice: her wedding announcement and her obituary. But she shattered the rule when details of her Reno divorce appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Two years later, on March 19, 1913, she made the news again when her quiet marriage to Allen Walker at …
For the portrait that led to Jeremiah and Daniel Wadsworth and to the previous blog, John Trumbull’s tender side, the investigation began with the painting itself. Oil on canvas, 22 x 18 inches, the hand of a skillful artist could be seen in the illuminated profile of an intriguing woman. The loose brushstrokes and representative painting style of the artist, the splendiferous hat and …
In 1845, Dr. Anthony Wayne Rollins established a scholarship for young people from Boone County, Missouri, both men and women. What would cause a man of the 19th century to include such a stipulation in his will? How could his perception of women have been so far ahead of his time? Could his wife, Sallie Rodes Rollins, be responsible? Sarah Harris Rodes, who …
