Collections record Beta

Portrait Miniature - William Wolcott Ellsworth (1791-1868)

1963-02-6

Oval shaped ivory portrait miniature. Shows young man with dark curly hair, side burns and blue eyes. He is wearing a black coat, white three-button vest, shirt and tie. The background is blue and white. Set in a gold frame with beaded edge. Back has oval glass insert with lock of brown hair inside. The edge of the glass also has a beaded edge.

SITTER: William Wolcott Ellsworth (1791-1868) was born in Windsor and attended the Litchfield Law School in 1811. He was a member of Congress from 1829 to 1834 and Governor of Connecticut from 1838 to 1842. 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

1812

2 3/4" width x 2 3/8" length

• gold
• hair
• glass
• ivory
• watercolor