| This miniature (#127) of
Isaiah
Thomas may be the portrait for which he recorded sitting on November
25
and 27, 1805.(4) A receipt for a deposit paid to the Boston
miniaturist
William M. S. Doyle is preserved in Thomas's business papers and
states:
'Boston, Nov. 10, 1805/Rec'd of Isaiah Thomas, the sum of
Twenty-five Dollars
in part payment for miniatures amounting to Fifty Dollars, Wm. M. S.
Doyle.'(5)
An 1805 advertisement placed by the artist in the New England
Palladium
stated that he charged between twelve and twenty dollars for painted
miniatures,
so a fee of fifty dollars charged to Thomas indicates that multiple
images
were produced.(6) It is unclear from the receipt if Doyle painted
other
members of the Thomas family at this time, or if he painted several
versions
of Thomas's own portrait.
Doyle began working as a miniature painter and silhouette cutter
in Boston
around 1803. He set up his studio in the Columbian Museum,
operated by
Daniel Bowen (c. 1760-1856). In 1806 Doyle joined Bowen as a
proprietor
of the museum, which included paintings of prominent Americans,
wax sculptures,
and natural history specimens.(7) While operating the museum,
Doyle continued
to produce dozens of pastel portraits, silhouettes, and watercolor
miniatures
of Boston area residents.(8) This portrait of Isaiah Thomas is one
of
his earlier attempts.
The American Antiquarian Society also owns a nineteenth-century
copy
of this miniature. Its earliest ownership is unknown, but as
Thomas's
granddaughters Clara Elizabeth and Mary Thomas Randall once owned
the
miniature, a family member may have commissioned the copy after
Thomas's
death. The signature, partially obscured by the domed case in
which the
miniature is mounted, suggests the likeness may have been made by
the
Scottish artist Daniel Lamont (fl. 1837-50), an itinerant
miniature painter
working in New England in the late 1830s.(9) In the 1840s he
exhibited
two miniatures at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art in Philadelphia
and,
after 1846, he lived in New York City.(10)
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1) Charles L. Nichols, Portraits of Isaiah Thomas
(Worcester: American Antiquarian
Society, 1921), 13-14, no. 10.
2) Charles L. Nichols, Portraits of Isaiah Thomas,
(Worcester: American
Antiquarian Society, 1921), 13; and Clarence S. Brigham, 'Notes on
the
Thomas Family Portraits,' Proceedings of the American Antiquarian
Society
56 (April 1946): 50-51. Former owner William Sloane had the
miniature
mounted in a new case.
3) Nichols, Portraits of Isaiah Thomas, 13. The author
incorrectly believed
that this portrait was the image engraved by William R. Jones in
the November
1811 Freemason's Magazine. That engraving was based on the Thomas
miniature
signed by Doyle (cat. #127).
4) Isaiah Thomas Diary, November 25, 1805, Isaiah Thomas
Papers 1748-1874,
American Antiquarian Society. Thomas noted: "Sat for
minae."
In the next entry, for November 27, Thomas used a ditto mark
indicating
that he sat again for the artist.
5) Isaiah Thomas Receipt Books 1802-1819, vol.18, p. 48,
Isaiah Thomas
Papers. A second receipt from the following summer continues the
account,
'Boston, July Nineteenth 1806. Rec'd of Isaiah Thomas, Thirty-five
Dollars,
on account of Miniatures, etc., Wm. M. S. Doyle.' Isaiah Thomas
Receipt
Books 1802-1819, vol. 18, p. 54.
6) New England Palladium, December 17, 1805.
7) In 1825 the Columbian Museum collection was purchased
by the artist
Ethan Allen Greenwood, see Georgia Brady Barnhill, 'Extracts from
the
Journals of Ethan Allen Greenwood: Portrait Painter and Museum
Proprietor,'
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 103 (April 1993):
91-178.
8) Arthur B. and Sybil B. Kern, 'The Pastel Portraits of
William B. Doyle,'
The Clarion 13 (Fall 1988): 41-47.
9) 'D. G. LAMONT, MINIATURE PAINTER. The same Artist from
Edinburgh who
met with such success here about two years ago, will remain for
about
two or three weeks, and positively no longer, as he is preparing
to go
south. MINIATURES on ivory from $5 to $30 and upwards, and in all
cases
warranted strikingly correct.'. New Hampshire Patriot and State
Gazette
(Concord), August 19, 1839, 3. Little is known about Lamont's
accomplishments
as a miniaturist
10) George C. Groce & David H. Wallace, The New-York
Historical Society's
Dictionary of Artists in America (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1957),
382.
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