Collections record Beta

Portrait Miniature - Dr. Algernon S. Lewis

1921-05-2

3/4 length pose, facing left. Depicts a man with dark brown hair, long sideburns. Wearing a dark blue coat with high collar and wide lapels, white shirt, dark blue neck band. Background is faded, but was light blue stippled.

SITTER: Algernon Lewis studied at the Female Academy from 1822-1823. He graduated from medical school in 1828 and spent his life practicing medicine. On November 10, 1829 he married Cornelia Bennett Lewis, another student of the Academy. 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

1831

2 3/8" x 2 1/2"

• ivory
• watercolor