The following
description has been prepared entirely by the current owner, Roberts S. Fastov,
Esq., and, at the collector’s request, has not been edited by Sloans &
Kenyon
Note
1) The following biographical materials are taken from the Askart.com website:
“The son of a maker of carriage bodies,
James Frothingham was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, near Boston in 1786.
He began his life as a chaise painter in his father's chaise manufactory, where
he taught himself to paint the finished coaches. He experimented in sketching
and taught himself the principles of portraiture. By 1806, he had become a
professional painter, after receiving minimal instruction from an obscure
student of Gilbert Stuart named Fabius Whiting, a younger artist based in
Lancaster.
Frothingham began his training by
painting portraits of family members; by about age 20 he had abandoned the
carriage-making trade for full-time portrait work. During this early stage of
his career he visited Gilbert Stuart, who was to have a profound influence on
his later development. Although unimpressed by Frothingham's first efforts,
Stuart eventually helped Frothingham, who later incorporated elements of Stuart's
style into his own work, especially the transparent flesh tones. Frothingham
also tended to avoid the slick finish of mid-century portraiture, keeping alive
the more painterly English manner domesticated in America by Stuart. A prolific
artist, Frothingham rarely indicated background elements in his portraits, but
concentrated instead on capturing an alert gaze and a general sense of
liveliness in his sitters.
Before moving to New York City in 1826
with his wife and three children, he painted in Boston and Salem, Massachusetts
for more than a decade. Soon he began exhibiting at the Boston Athenaeum
(despite his recent move) and the National Academy of Design. The latter
institution elected him an associate member in 1828 and a full academician in
1831. He served as its corresponding secretary in 1844. Frothingham was
particularly active during the 1830s, but his production fell off at about age
60. He spent the last two decades of his life in Brooklyn, where he died in
1864. His daughter Sarah became a painter of miniatures.
Many of his portraits are owned by the
City of New York; several others, including that of the poet William Cullen
Bryant (1833) are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts. James
Frothingham died in 1864.
Sources include:
Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Artists
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who
Was Who in American Art
http://famousamericans.net/jamesfrothingham
/http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pbio?11400
Bibliographic References:
Dunlap 1834, 2:212-217.
Tuckerman 1867, 61-62.
Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai
Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the
Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art
Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 232-233.”
Askart.com lists 16 major museums
holding Frothingham works of art, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Brooklyn Museum and the new York Historical Society, all of which are in New
York City, New York; the National Gallery of Art and National Portrait Gallery,
both in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia,
PA, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit,
MI, High Museum, Atlanta, GA, and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.
Note 2) The following portraits of young
females, that are by Frothingham, corroborate that this portrait of Harriet
Browne Bivens is, in fact by Frothingham:
Mrs. Nathaniel West, Jr. (Mary White) by James Frothingham Mrs. Peter
Gilman Robbins (Polly
Williams) by James Frothingham. Mrs. Joseph
Warren Revere (Mary Robbins) by
James Frothingham Catherine Reed (1800-1850) Daughter of Luman Reed, the famed NY merchant and philan- thropist, whose great art
collection was the cornerstone of the New York Historical Society art
collection by:
James Frothingham Date: ca. 1831 New York Historical Society
Note 3) Askart.com only lists 4
Frothingham sales on its website, all of which are portraits of men and not
one woman, let alone a beautiful young woman like Harriet Browne Bivens. The
highest auction price ever paid for a Frothingham portrait of a not particularly
handsome young man, which was smaller (29.20
in. x 24 in.) than
this Bivens portrait (35 ¾ in. x 26 ¾
in.) was $4,750 on
11/5/2005. Given the above Frothingham biographical information and museum
listings, and that this auction portrait is a highly esthetically appealing
depiction of a beautiful, smiling young women, Mr. Fastov believes that the
presale estimate of $5,000-$8,000 is reasonable and justifiable. Title/Subject:
Isaac Wood Oil on canvas. 29.20 in. x 24
in. sold for $4,750 on 11/05/2005 - 11/06/2005 at Northeast
Auctions, Portsmouth, NH
|