Lot 43: Anthony and/or Nina Meucci (Spanish/American, ac. 1818-1826/27) Portrait Miniature of a Gentleman in His Library. Signed "Meucci" c.l.,

Anthony and/or Nina Meucci (Spanish/American, ac. 1818-1826/27)

Portrait Miniature of a Gentleman in His Library. Signed "Meucci" c.l., the verso inscribed "Painted at Saratoga Springs in 1826 or 7." Watercolor and gouache on ivory, 4 x 3 1/2 in., in a period lacquered composition frame with brass liner. Condition: Ivory is slightly bowed on right and left edge, otherwise good condition.

Provenance: Family descent. The back of the portrait is inscribed "Henrietta Tower Page to Charlie Tower" (also named Charlemagne), and then descended in the family o the consignor. Henrietta was the sister of Charlemagne Tower I.

Note: The subject of the portrait was thought by the family to be New York State legislator Reuben Tower, b. February 15, 1787 in Rutland, Massachusetts. He would have been approximately 39 years old at the time the portrait was painted. It may otherwise be a portrait of Reuben's son Charlemagne Tower I, b. April 18, 1809, who would have been 17 or 18 years of age in 1826. Charlemagne was an assistant teacher at Utica Academy, in New York in 1826, and then went on to Harvard, graduating in 1830. He was a lawyer and businessman active in acquiring land in the Schuylkill Valley in Pennsylvania, and served as an officer for coal and railroad companies. During the Civil War he organized and led a company of Union soldiers from Pottsville, Pennsylvania where he was commissioned as a Captain. After the war, with the sell-off of lands by the Northern Pacific Railroad, he acquired large tracts in the upper Midwest and Northwest and developed the famous iron ore Soudan Mine in northern Minnesota.