Lot 268: JOSEPH H. (J.H.) DAVIS (1832-1837)

A RARE DOUBLE PORTRAIT OF ISAAC RICHARDSON, AGED 62 AND ELIZABETH H. RICHARDSON, AGED 61 POSED WITH A PORTRAIT OF ANDREW JACKSON

measurements
9 1/4 by 14in.

alternate measurements
23.5 by 35.6cm

watercolor, pen and ink on paper

PROVENANCE

Isaac Richardson, to his maternal Thompson family of Woburn, Massachusetts
Shirley Thompson, Reading, Massachusetts, 1920
Richard and Betty Rasso, East Chatham, New York, 1977
Barry Cohen, New York
Mr. and Mrs. David Krashes, Princeton, Massachusetts, 2000
Walters & Benisek, Northampton, Massachusetts, 2003

NOTE

By 1838, at the time this double portrait was created, 'Jacksonian Democracy' was in full flower. Its policies advocated broad participation in political processes and economic opportunity to the electorate. Certainly Mr. and Mrs. Richardson would have benefited from and supported these policies, hence the inclusion of Jackson in their portrait.

Researchers Sybil and Arthur Kern have done research into primary sources across the Northeast, and have formed a compelling biography for this man whose identity has been partially defined principally from the works of art he left behind. They propose that he was probably born on August 10, 1811, in Limington, Maine, the son of land trader Joseph Davis and his wife, Phebe. In addition to farming and land speculating like his father, over the years this individual also worked as a manufacturer and inventor. He lived in several towns in the Northeast, including Saco, Vassalboro and Newfield, Maine, Morrison, New Jersey, and Wilmington, Massachusetts. He died on May 25, 1864, at the age of fifty-three in Woburn, Massachusetts. Excerpted from Charlotte Emans Moore, wirting in American Radiance.

By the end of his career, Davis had reached a strength of abstract design and bold color. The present example with its exuberant and powerfully drawn carpet is evidence of this.