News
- May 26, 2010
Open for the Season! New Exhibit at John Paul Jones House Museum
“Brooches, Caps and Collars: Adornment in Portsmouth Portraits 1800-1860” Exhibit Opens 2010 Season at the John Paul Jones House Museum
As Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote in An Old Town by the Sea (1893): "To live in Portsmouth with out possessing a family portrait done by Copley is like living in Boston without having an ancestor in the old Granary Burying-Ground. You can exist, but you cannot be said to flourish.”
Even though many of the so-called Copleys were actually by Joseph Blackburn, Aldrich conveys the attitude toward family portraits among Portsmouth’s 19th century citizens. This collection of portraits of the women of Portsmouth and personal articles from collars to jewelry from the Portsmouth Historical Society collection depicts the substance of this "old town by the sea."While none of the portraits in our group are by an artist as distinguished as John Singleton Copley, being rather by Joseph Greenleaf Cole, Lyman Cole, Jonathan Treadwell, Walter Ingalls and “unknown artist,” the generation of men and women who came after the wealthy merchant families of the late 18th century continued to have likenesses created.
While there are probably more likenesses of men and ships from this period, we have chosen to limit the exhibit to portraits of women and their accessories. All but two of these women were either married or widowed when portrayed, with several painted as companion portraits with their spouses. Both the portraits and the accessories were a way for women and their families to preserve their identity. The large number of these items given to the Portsmouth Historical Society demonstrates the importance they had for their owners and the generation immediately following them.
While the portraits were painted over a half-century, most of the women were born in the late 18th century and portrayed at ages ranging from twenty to over seventy. Over half are part of the Portsmouth Historical Society’s collection and the others are on loan from the New Hampshire Historical Society, Strawbery Banke, the Portsmouth Athenaeum and private collections.