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Isaiah Thomas, Mary Thomas Fowle
Thomas,
and
Mary Weld Thomas Pastels
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ISAIAH THOMAS (1749-1831), 1804
Attr. to Gerrit Schipper (1775-c. 1830)
pastel on paper
Isaiah Thomas: 8 13/16 x 7 13/16 (22.4 x 19.8)
Gift of Frances Crocker Sloane, 1945
Weis #119
Hewes #124
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ISAIAH THOMAS (1749-1831), 1804
Attributed to Gerrit Schipper (1775-c. 1830)
pastel on paper
8 11/16 x 7 7/8 (22.3 x 20)
inscribed on verso of frame by sitter: "Isaiah Thomas, 1804,
aged
55 when this picture was taken."
Partial gift of Leonard C. Couch, partial purchase of Charles
L. Nichols,
1920.
Weis #118
Hewes #126
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MARY WELD THOMAS (c. 1768-1825), c. 1804
Attributed to Gerrit Schipper (1775-c. 1830)
pastel on paper
8 3/4 x 7 7/8 (22.2 x 19.9)
Gift of Chauncey Nash, 1951
Hewes #132
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MARY THOMAS FOWLE THOMAS (1750-1818), 1804
Attr. to Gerrit Schipper (1775-c. 1830)
pastel on paper
Mary Thomas Fowle Thomas: 8 3/4 x 7 7/8 (22.2 x 20)
Gift of Frances Crocker Sloane, 1945
Weis #126
Hewes #125
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These pastel portraits of members of the Thomas family are part
of a
group attributed to the Dutch artist Gerrit Schipper and drawn
during
his 1804 visit to Worcester. In addition to those of Isaiah
Thomas, Sr.,
his wife Mary T. Fowle Thomas, his daughter-in-law Mary Weld
Thomas (and
her sister Hannah Weld of Boston) in the AAS collection, are
profiles
of Isaiah Thomas, Jr.(2)
Schipper arrived in New York in 1802, after sojourns in
Brussels, Paris,
and Russia, and began producing chalk profile portraits. He spent
part
of 1803 in Boston and moved in the spring of 1804 to Salem,
Massachusetts,
where he might have met Isaiah Thomas, Jr., who often managed the
portion
of the Thomas family's printing empire on the North Shore. In
August 1804,
Schipper took an advertisement in the Massachusetts
Spy. 'G. Schipper,
an eminent painter from Germany, has it in contemplation to visit
Worcester,
in order to favor those Ladies and Gentlemen who may wish to have
correct
likenesses taken; he executes them in colored crayons, set in an
elegant
frame and glazed for Ten Dollars, and if not an approved likeness,
no
payment will be expected; he requires but one sitting of three
quarters
of an hour. Specimens of his painting may be seen by applying to
Isaiah
Thomas, Jun.'(3) A second advertisement, placed after his arrival
in Worcester,
also noted that examples of his work could be viewed on request to
Isaiah
Thomas, Jr.(4) During his stay in Worcester, Schipper drew profile
pastels
of several Thomas family members, including the additional
portrait of
Mary T. Fowle Thomas (wearing a dark dress) and of Isaiah,
Jr.(5)
Mary T. Fowle Thomas was the second wife of Isaiah Thomas,
Sr. The widow
of Isaac Fowle (d. 1777), she was Isaiah Thomas's cousin, and they
were
married on May 26, 1779. Mary, who had two daughters by her
earlier marriage,
raised Thomas's two children by his first wife. 'As the head of a
family,
she was faithful to the charge committed to her, and endeavored
with scrupulous
exactness to perform her duty towards those over whom she was
called to
exercise her protection and care.... Her heart always melted to
the tale
of woe, and her hand was never slow to follow its sacred
impulse.'(6)
This pair of pastels descended through the Thomas family. In 1928,
when
they were offered for sale, Clarence Brigham, the librarian of the
American
Antiquarian Society, sought the funds to purchase them by
appealing to
descendants of Isaiah Thomas. 'Not a day passes,' Brigham wrote,
'but
that we have inquiry in some way regarding Isaiah Thomas or that
we fail
to recognize our indebtedness to the scholar and philanthropist
that founded
this Society over a century ago.... If there is any place in the
world
that these two portraits ought to be preserved permanently, it is
in this
Library building.'(7) The pastels were purchased by a family
member who
retained them for seventeen years before donating them to the
Society
in 1945.
Mary Weld Thomas, wife of Isaiah Thomas, Jr. was born in
Marblehead,
Massachusetts, and grew up in Boston. Her father was a prosperous
merchant
and property owner. In 1797 she married Isaiah Thomas, Jr., the
son of
the founder of the American Antiquarian Society, and, like his
father,
a printer and publisher. She was the mother of twelve children,
six girls
and six boys.(8)
The pastel (#124) once thought to be the work of William Doyle
(1769-1828)
has been reattributed to Gerrit Schipper. One of a group of
drawings attributed
to this artist, the 1804 date was inscribed by Isaiah Thomas,
Sr. on his,
his wife's and Hannah Weld's portraits. The attribution of other
family
pastels (#126, 132) to Schipper is a relatively recent
development. Considered
the work of James Sharples (c. 1751-1811), research revealed that
Sharples
was in England during 1804 when the image was drawn.(9) Later,
they were
thought to be the work of William Doyle (1769-1828) because of an
1805
receipt among the Thomas papers documenting a payment to Doyle for
several
miniatures.(10) In 1990 similarities were noted between these
images and
the pastel of Isaiah Thomas attributed to Gerrit Schipper. This
observation
suggests that these profiles might also be the work of that artist
or
copied after Schipper's work.(11)
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1) These pastels may be the images bequeathed in 1831 by
Isaiah
Thomas, Sr. to his grandson Isaiah Thomas III (b. 1810). See
Charles Nichols,
The Portraits of Isaiah Thomas (Worcester: American Antiquarian
Society,
1921), 9.
2) Jeanne Riger, 'New Light on Gerrit Schipper, the
Painter,'
The Clarion 15 (Winter 1990): 65-70, and Proceedings of the
American Antiquarian
Society 61 (October 1951): 232.
3) Worcester Spy, August 1, 1804, 3. The advertisement
also ran
on August 8th, 15th, 22nd.
4) Worcester Spy, September 12, 1804, 3, and September
19, 1804,
4.
5) Riger, 'New Light on Gerrit Schipper,' 66. Photographs
of
the second portraits of Mary Thomas Fowle Thomas and Isaiah
Thomas, Jr.,
are on file at the American Antiquarian Society and the Frick Art
Reference
Library (FARL #50673, #50672).
6) Obituary of Mary Fowle Thomas, Massachusetts Spy,
November
25, 1818.
7) Clarence Brigham to Mrs. William Sloane, October 31,
1928,
American Antiquarian Society Archives.
8) Charles Frederick Robinson, Weld Collections (Ann
Arbor, Michigan:
privately printed, 1938), 100-01.
9) John Hill Morgan to Clarence Brigham, July 2, 1937,
American
Antiquarian Society Archives.
10) Frederick Weis, 'Portraits in the American
Antiquarian Society,'
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 56 (April
1946): 118-19.
11) See the 1951-52 correspondence between Hannah Johnson
Howell
of the Frick Art Reference Library and Clarence Brigham, American
Antiquarian
Society Archives, and Riger, 'New Light on Gerrit Schipper,'
66.
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Society
Last updated December 10, 2004
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