Lot 624: * JUSTUS DALEE (1793-1878)

painted in New England circa 1840; inscribed in pencil verso Cathrina A. Hichock; in the original gilt frame.

watercolor, pen and ink on paper

3 by 5in. 7.6 by 12.7cm

Sold in these rooms, Fine Americana, June 19, 1992, Sale 6319, lot 206

The sitters are said to be members of the Hichock family. A companion portrait of two other Hichock boys was sold at the same auction.

Justus Dalee was born October 1, 1793 in Pittstown, Washington County, New York to James Waterman Da Lee and his wife, Anstis Kinnicutt. He married Mary Fowler on October 13, 1816 at White Creek, Washington County, New York, served as a musician in the War of 1812 and died on January 5,1878 in Eden, Wisconsin.

Dalee is best-known for the more than eighty-six naive portraits of children done during the course of his itinerant career in New York State. Listings in city directories, signatures on family records and miniatures, and his sketchbook document his movements from Palmyra to Troy to Cambridge to West Troy to Rochester, at which point he moved across the border into Massachusetts, Connecticut, and perhaps as far south as New York City before relocating to Buffalo. There he is listed as a "portrait painter" for the last time in 1847-1848; the next volume lists his occupation as "grocer."