Portrait of a Connecticut Clockmaker
ca. 1800
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Orrin Wickersham June
Accession Number
1967.136.2
Tags
About this artwork
Ralph Earl was born into a prominent family of craftsmen, and his portraits are painted with sharp attention to detail. In this painting the subject sits in a Sheraton âfancyâ armchair, a type that was especially popular in the Connecticut Valley, where Earl worked. The wooden clock on the tea table might be a kind of clock that was developed in that region for mass production. The clock and books are emblems of the subjectâs skill and education, which have earned him a respectable and inf...
About the Artist
Ralph Earl · 1751–1801
Ralph Earl (1751–1801) was born on May 11 in Shrewsbury or Leicester, Massachusetts, the eldest of four children to Ralph Earle, a colonel in the Revolutionary army, and Phebe Whittemore Earl. Growing up amid farmers and craftsmen in Worcester County, Earl displayed prodigious talent as a self-taught artist, emulating the works of John Singleton Copley after observing his half-brother Henry Pelham...