Solutions to Portrait Puzzles – Tortoise Shell Combs

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 …