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Lot Essay
Born in Leverett, Massachusetts in 1805, Erastus Salisbury Field was largely self-taught. He traveled to New York to study with Samuel F.B. Morse for a brief period of time, and then began a successful career working primarily in the Connecticut and Massachusetts regions. In 1831, he married Phebe Gilmur of Ware, Massachusetts and they had one child.
This portrait of Henry Allen Pease represents the stylistic shift that occurred in Field's work during the 1830's, when he started rendering likenesses with "a softer modeling and assured brushwork, quite different from the crystalline edges of the earlier portraits" (Mary Black, Erastus Salisbury Field, (Springfield, MA, 1984), p. 18). Henry Allen Pease was born in 1831 in Suffield, Connecticut, the son of Anne Jane Clark, who was married to a son of Deacon Harlow Pease. While the father's first name is unknown, he is thought to have owned a grist mill in Alford, Massachusetts. Henry is presented in an elaborate costume, holding a card with flower detail in his hand, looking youthful and naïve in his appearance, yet strong-willed and eager in pose. Henry later married Emily Marion Higgins of Spencertown, New York, and died in Alford, Massachusetts in 1870.
The original black-stained frame with gold leaf stencilled design seen here was used by Field for several portraits completed in Connecticut during the mid-1830's, including those of three generations of the Pease family.
This portrait of Henry Allen Pease represents the stylistic shift that occurred in Field's work during the 1830's, when he started rendering likenesses with "a softer modeling and assured brushwork, quite different from the crystalline edges of the earlier portraits" (Mary Black, Erastus Salisbury Field, (Springfield, MA, 1984), p. 18). Henry Allen Pease was born in 1831 in Suffield, Connecticut, the son of Anne Jane Clark, who was married to a son of Deacon Harlow Pease. While the father's first name is unknown, he is thought to have owned a grist mill in Alford, Massachusetts. Henry is presented in an elaborate costume, holding a card with flower detail in his hand, looking youthful and naïve in his appearance, yet strong-willed and eager in pose. Henry later married Emily Marion Higgins of Spencertown, New York, and died in Alford, Massachusetts in 1870.
The original black-stained frame with gold leaf stencilled design seen here was used by Field for several portraits completed in Connecticut during the mid-1830's, including those of three generations of the Pease family.