Collections record Beta

Portrait Miniature - Clarissa Deming Perkins (1795-1837)

1939-03-2

Rectangular ivory miniature with sky and landscape background. Bust portrait of young woman with rolled black hair, brown eyes, lace cap with blue ribbon tie under chin. Two-layer lace fichu, black empire dress with blue shawl. Red leather album case with two hooks. White silk trade card. Clarissa (Deming) Perkins (1795-1837), the daughter of Julius and Dorothy C. Deming, attended Litchfield Female Academy from 1809-11 and married Charles Perkins in 1818.

SITTER: Clarissa Deming Perkins married Charles Perkins (1792-1856) from Norwich, a Litchfield Law School student in 1813. ARTIST: Born in Milton, a village in the town of Litchfield, Anson Dickinson began advertising himself as a miniature painter in 1802. He traveled to New York in 1804, where he was painted by Edward Greene Malbone, the leading American miniaturist of his day. Dickinson painted over 1,500 miniatures over the course of fifty years, traveling as far as Canada and South Carolina to paint. He kept a studio in New York for a period, and returned frequently to Litchfield where he painted prominent residents and students of the Female Academy and Law School.

• Dickinson, Anson, 1779-1852

1828

case: 3"w x 3 5/8"h

• glass
• watercolor
• leather
• ivory
• silk