Brooklyn Museum

RALPH EARL AND HIS PORTRAIT OF TRUMAN MARSH Author(s): John Hill Morgan Source: The Museum Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4 (OCTOBER, 1921), pp. 132-141 Published by: Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26459332 Accessed: 05-02-2020 15:43 UTC

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms REV. TRUMAN MARSH Portrait by Ralph Earl. Brooklyn Museum Collection

This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms RALPH EARL AND HIS PORTRAIT OF TRUMAN MARSH

IN Trumanpreparing Marsh, this purchased article on by the the portrait Brooklyn of Museum the Rev. at the Clarke sale in January, 1919, the attention of the writer was again called to the almost hopeless inaccuracy existing in the sources of our information regarding early American artists. French, of course, claiming all artists for Connecticut on the thinnest of evidence, states that Earl was born in Lebanon in 1751/ deducing this perhaps from the fact that he worked much in that state and died in Bolton, Conn. Why Lebanon is left to con jecture. Naturally one turns to Dunlap for information only to find that his facts regarding Ralph Earl, his artist brother James, and the latter's son, Augustus, also a painter, are so confused that it has taken nearly a hun dred years to partially straighten them out. A fair ex ample of the slipshod methods pursued by writers on Earl would be the following: Dunlap records his mem ory of having seen "two full lengths of the Rev. Timothy Dwight and his wife, painted in 1777, as Earl thought, in the manner of Copley. They showed some talent, but the shadows were black as charcoal or ink. ' '2 Tucker man merely rearranges and further confuses Dunlap's information, dubbing the artist "T. Earl" and stating that the Dwight portraits "are in Copley's manner with black shadows."3 Isham asserts that Earl "had painted portraits before he left America 'in the manner of Cop ley' which was simply the common manner of the tinte."4 1 Art and Artists of Connecticut, H. W. French, 1879. - History of the Arts of Design in the . Vol. I, p. 263, Bayley and Goodspeed's Edition. 3 Book of the Artists, page 54. 'The History of American Painting, page 76. Samuel Isham, 1905.

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Thus Dunlap's criticism, probably just, that Earl thought he had copied Copley's manner in the two Dwight portraits, is turned into a statement of fact that Earl painted portraits in the manner of Copley before he left America, and to this Isham, so excellent a critic of later American art, gives the authority of his name. The writer lias adverted before to the scant courtesy which Isham pays to most of our early painters and the lack of appreciation which he evidences for Copley's genius. Par from being "simply the common manner of the time" Copley's portraits from 1760 to 1774 are in a class by themselves and 110 artist, native or foreign, then painting in America, could approach Copley's draughts manship or his art in depicting laces, satins and fabrics, and his modelling of features and hands. The credit for giving us many facts regarding Earl is due to the researches of Mr. T. Hovey Gage, of Worces ter, Mass., to whose article in the Worcester Bulletin5 the writer here acknowledges his debt. Ralph Earl, the son of Ralph and Phebe (Whitte more), was born May 11, 1751, probably in the town of Shrewsbury, Worcester County, Massachusetts. His birth is recorded both in the towns of Shrewsbury and Leicester, but Mr. Gage thinks that his father, Ralph, though born in Leicester, was living in Shrewsbury at the time of his son's birth. We know that the father, Ralph, held a captain's commission in the Revolutionary war, but what part, if any, his son, Ralph, took therein is still a matter of doubt. Dunlap, copying a note in Barber's "History and Antiquities of New Haven," and Tuckerman and French copying Dunlap, state that Ralph, the painter, was a member of the Guard of the Governor of Connecticut which marched to Cambridge soon after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, but Mr. R. T. Haines Halsey properly points out, in his scholarly article on Earl, that the muster rolls of that organization, "The Second Com 6 Ralph Earl, Worcester Bulletin, July, 1916, by T. H. G.

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms pany of Governor's Foot Guards," fail to bear Earl's name and the "probability is, that when the alarm occa sioned by the news of the Battles of Lexington and Con cord reached New Haven, and the military of all New England rushed, as they thought, to the succor of their countrymen in Boston, Earl, carried away by the current excitement, marched with this organization, one of the members of which was his friend, Amos Doolittle, the engraver."0 The Earle genealogy states that it was his brother, Clark Earle, who marched in April, 1775, to Cambridge from Paxton, Mass., in Capt. Phinehas Moore's Company.7 In any event, Doolittle engraved "four different views of the Battle of Lexington, Con cord, etc.", which were published on December 13, 1775, and sold "at the store of Mr. James Lockwood, near the college in New Haven." These, he advertised, were "neatly engraved on Copper, from original paintings taken on the spot." Barber, as early as 1831, in his book ascribed the originals of Doolittle's engravings to Ralph Earl and in the 3rd Edition published in 1870 there is a statement attributed to Doolittle, that he acted as model for Earl's paintings. The tradition, therefore, that Earl painted the scenes of these battles may be accepted. Mr. Halsey states that as these engravings are almost the "first examples of Doolittle's work with the graver on copper, the crudeness cannot be ascribed to Earl's lack of skill with brush and pencil." The most that can be said for them, however, is that the prints transmit sketches probably made by Earl on the spot, but to call them, as does Dunlap, "perhaps the first historical compositions in America" is to dignify them far beyond their merits. We know practically nothing of Earl's early life, either where it was passed, where he was educated, or what were the influences which developed his talent for the brush. Sometime in 1774 Earl married Sarah Gates

6 Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vol. I, No. 6, May, 1906. ' Ralph Earle and His Descendants, by Pliny Earle, Worcester, Mass., 1888.

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms of Worcester, and the birth of his first child—a daughter Phebe—is there recorded oil January 25, 1775.8 Dunlap says Earl was painting portraits in Connect icut in 1775, but how accurate this information is we cannot now say, as we have nothing further than this statement. From a deposition of Earl's wife, taken in 1815, we learn that in response to the question, "At what time and where did you begin to keep house (with Ralph Earl), and how long did you so keep house?" she replied, "We began to keep house in November, 1776, at Newhaven, about two years after we were married, and continued until the May following, which was all the time we kept house together."9 Of course, a deposition taken forty years after the events cannot be scrutinized too critically and some latitude as to time may be inferred from the fact that if the couple began housekeeping in November, 1776, "about two years after we were married," this would hardly permit the birth of Phebe in January, 1775. The fact that the couple did not form a home for two years would indicate that Earl was unsettled in his habits, a conclusion borne out by all the known facts of his life, and points to the likelihood of his being an itin erant painter at that time. His wife states that the home in New Haven was broken up in May of 1777 and the birth of their second child, John, in Worcester on May 13, 1777, suggests the idea that Earl had already deserted his wife in New Haven and that she had returned to her former home. On the back of Earl's portrait of William Carpenter, an English boy, owned by the Worcester Art Museum, there is an inscription stating that the sitter was born in 1767 and that he was about twelve when it was painted. This picture, then, places Earl in England about 1779 and as it shows much advance in technique over the Dwight portraits of 1777, the conclusion that he studied

8 From article by Mr. Gage (supra). "From article by Mr. Gage (supra).

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms under West is probable, although no proof has come to the writer's eye except the statement in Dunlap. Mr. Gage points out that in an obituary notice in the Hart ford Courant, August 24, 1801, Earl is said to have been a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, but the strong proba bility is that West befriended and instructed Earl as he did so many young men from his native land. In any event his work was of sufficient excellence to secure his election to the Royal Academy in 1783, and he was living in that year in Hatton Garden when he exhibited his por trait of George Onslow, although the address Leicester Fields is given on another painting,—No. 76, "Portrait of a Gentleman." In 1784 he exhibited "A Master in Chancery Entering the House of Lords," and his address was 12 Bowling Street, and in 1785 another "Portrait of a Gentleman." As thereafter his name disappears from the exhibitors to the Royal Academy and also does not appear among the exhibitors of The Free Society of Artists, it is probable that he returned to his native land about this time. We must assume that Sarah Gates divorced Earl, as she married Oliver Pierce in 1786, and Earl was married in England to Anne Whitesides (or Wheelock), by whom he had two children, Ralph Eleaser Whitesides (or Wheelock) Earl, also a painter in after life, and Mary Anne Earl, and Mr. Gage says that family and local tradition agree that Earl deserted both women whom he married.10 If Earl returned to America shortly after he stopped exhibiting in England, as seems probable, this would be about 1786 and shortly after that time we find dated por traits by him in this country. Mrs. Alexander Hamilton is said to have been painted when Earl was imprisoned for debt in in 1787, and this is the earliest date coming to the writer's atten tion which would indicate the time of Earl's return. Earl is said to have painted miniatures, and he occasion 10 Article by Mr. Gage (supra).

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms LADY WILLIAMS AND CHILD Portrait by Ralph Earl Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum

This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ally painted landscapes; one example of the latter being the large canvas now in the Worcester Art Museum

entitled "East from Leicester Hills," " an «/early view of Worcester painted for Colonel Thomas Denny "who lived on the old Denny farm on Denny Hill in the South East Corner of the town of Leicester,"11 and another, a picture of Niagara which was exhibited "in all parts of this country and was then carried to London where it still existed but a few years ago."12 It is difficult to explain the vast difference in quality in portraits by Earl on any other ground than the unstable nature of his character and the habits of intemperance which caused his death at the home of Dr. Samuel Cooly on August 16,1801, according to the record of the First Church in Bolton, Connecticut. It is almost inconceivable that the same hand which painted the charming picture of Lady Williams and child in the Metropolitan Museum, could have executed the William Gilliland in the New York Historical Society, or perhaps a better comparison would be the portrait of Mrs. Nathaniel Gardner now in the collection of Mr. Herbert Lee Pratt, and that of Samuel Stanhope Smith now in Princeton University, both painted in the same year (1798). The portrait of Mrs. Gardner is charming in pose and color, and dexterous in all its treat ment except the hands, while the Smith portrait is almost forbidding in its crudeness. Earl in later life was cer tainly influenced by Stuart's style as the portraits of Nathaniel Gardner and Abigail Burr amply prove. It is somewhat difficult to choose between the spelling "Earl" and "Earle" as no doubt the family name was originally "Earle." The artist, however, while spelling it both ways seems to have used the shorter form "more frequently, and as Dunlap, Mr. Halsey and Mr. Gage have adopted "Earl" the writer follows suit for the sake of uniformity.

"Worcester Bulletin. January, 1917. 12 Obituary notice, Capt. John Earl, Worcester Palladium, Apr. 30, 1856.

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Dunlap's summary of Earl's art is worth quoting. He says: "He lias considerable merit—a breadth of light and shadow-—facility of handling and truth in likeness." If Earl studied under Sir Joshua Reynolds, he utterly failed to regard his precepts as set forth in his Fourth Discourse as President of the Royal Academy and which are quoted by Mr. W. Roberts in a recent article13 to explain many of the whole length portraits of that mas ter. Sir Joshua said: "On the whole it seems to me that there is but one presiding principle which regulates and gives stability to every art. The works, whether of poets, painters, moralists or historians, which are built 011 general nature, live forever ; while those which depend for their existence on particular customs and habits, a partial view of nature, or the fluctuations of fashion, can only be co-eval with that which first raised them from obscurity." "In other words," says Mr. Roberts, "women and children in their every day garments would be merely illustrations of the fashions of the day and could have no permanent value as works of art." Much of the charm of Earl lies in the fidelity with which he has depicted local color and preserved the spirit of his time. All writers on Earl have referred to one characteristic of his,—that of painting his sitter by an open window through which may be seen a landscape showing the homestead. But in addition to this charac teristic his portraits are veritable fashion plates, the knee buckles of Thomas Earle and the five bar swinging gate to the left of the homestead, the huge head dress on Mrs. Gardner, the fascinating cap on the Williams baby, together with the silver and crystal inkstand, the basket of silk-worm cocoons beside Mrs. Charles Jeffrey Smith, the high rolled powdered hair and veil on Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, the mobcap on Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick, all are delightful accessories. Even though the mahogany

13 "English Whole Length Portraits in America.'' Art in America. Vol IX, N. 5, page 177.

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms table in the portrait of William Carpenter is hopelessly out of drawing, the brass hinge on the top leaf will delight the heart of the antique furniture expert, and something can be forgiven because the keynote of Earl is simplicit}7 and truth and he has preserved so faithfully for us the "mode" of his time. The portrait of Truman Marsh is an excellent exam ple of Earl's art. The young clergyman, not long admit ted to the ministry, stands in his library consulting a huge volume of ecclesiastical authority and no doubt is engaged in preparing a sermon, bursting with prophesy of eternal punishment to the evil doer, which he was to thunder from his pulpit next Lord's Day. Truman Marsh was born on February 23, 1768, in Litchfield, Connecticut, and died there in 1851. He was the son of Ebenezer and Lucy (Phelps) Marsh and great grandson of Captain John Marsh, the pioneer of Litch field. He graduated from , class of 1786, and married October 27, 1791, his cousin, Clarissa Sey mour, a daughter of Major Moses Seymour and a sister of Senator Horatio Seymour of Vermont and aunt of Governor Horatio Seymour of New York. Earl painted all of Major Seymour's family and no doubt this portrait of his son-in-law was painted at the same time. ' ' Priest ' ' Marsh was rector of the Episcopal church in New Mil ford, for six years, and of St. Michael's in Litchfield for twenty-three years, and maintained, in addition, a school in Litchfield, then famous for housing the first law school in America. A description of the portrait, other than what appears in the reproduction, is as follows : Background, dull red-brown curtain and shelves of books bound in tan colored leather with gilt lines and titled on red ground. Black clerical gown, white band and powdered hair. Canvas, 38 inches high by 34 inches wide. It is signed ' ' R. Earl Pinxt 1791." The portrait was purchased from Walter E. Vaill, great-grandson of the Rev. Truman Marsh and it had been continuously in the family until sold to Mr. Thomas B. Clarke in 1916. J. H. M.

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This content downloaded from 131.118.253.131 on Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:43:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms