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Lot Essay
In the 1960 exhibition catalogue for the Corcoran Gallery's American Painters of the South, Eleanor Swenson Quandt described Jacob Frymire’s known oeuvre as “somber in mood, showing acute observation and a distinctive flair for design, these portraits are prime examples of American folk art at its best” (cited in Linda Crocker Simmons, Jacob Frymire, American Limner (Washington D.C., 1975), p. 7). Frymire’s portraits of the Rev. George and Augusta Wells, offered here, exemplify Quandt’s words. He appears stern, she, almost dejected, and both are set against a stark background, yet details of their immediate material world—their clothing, their books and her chair—are delineated with precision. This pair of portraits is particularly close in execution to the artist’s portraits of three members of the Calmes family, painted in Kentucky in 1806 and now at the Chicago Historical Society. Hallmarks of Frymire’s hand seen in the Calmes works and those offered here include eyes positioned at noticeably different levels, her distinctly rendered hairline, an angular highlight to the bridge of the nose and pale skin tones with minimal modulation (for the Calmes portraits, see Simmons, pp. 34-36, nos. 22-24).
Identifiable as a Baltimore form, one probably made in the Finlay shop, the distinctively decorated chair crest in the portrait of Mrs. Wells indicates that Frymire was executing portraits up until his final years. Of German descent, Frymire was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, later lived with his father in Franklin county and by 1810, was living with a wife and children in Shippensburg, Cumberland county. Most of his known portraits appear to date prior to 1810 when he travelled through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky and only one, dated 1813, is known after this time. However, the decoration of chair’s crest, consisting of a central wreath with trailing rinceaux, illustrates with remarkable exactitude designs produced by the Finlay shop in about 1820 (for an example, see the card table in lot 559 in this sale).
The portraits have descended directly in the family through five generations. Entitled Methodist Hymns, the book in Augusta Wells' hand refers to her faith as well as the profession her husband, Rev. George Wells (1776-1830). His 1830 obituary reads in part: “Departed this life…after a lingering illness of seven months, the Rev. GEORGE WELLS, of the associated Methodist Churches, in the 55th year of his age, a native of England, but for many years a respectable and industrious inhabitant of this city” (Maryland Gazette [Annapolis], 16 December 1830, p. 3). The couple are recorded as marrying in Anne Arundel county in 1798 and he is buried in Annapolis’ Saint Anne’s Cemetery.
Identifiable as a Baltimore form, one probably made in the Finlay shop, the distinctively decorated chair crest in the portrait of Mrs. Wells indicates that Frymire was executing portraits up until his final years. Of German descent, Frymire was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, later lived with his father in Franklin county and by 1810, was living with a wife and children in Shippensburg, Cumberland county. Most of his known portraits appear to date prior to 1810 when he travelled through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky and only one, dated 1813, is known after this time. However, the decoration of chair’s crest, consisting of a central wreath with trailing rinceaux, illustrates with remarkable exactitude designs produced by the Finlay shop in about 1820 (for an example, see the card table in lot 559 in this sale).
The portraits have descended directly in the family through five generations. Entitled Methodist Hymns, the book in Augusta Wells' hand refers to her faith as well as the profession her husband, Rev. George Wells (1776-1830). His 1830 obituary reads in part: “Departed this life…after a lingering illness of seven months, the Rev. GEORGE WELLS, of the associated Methodist Churches, in the 55th year of his age, a native of England, but for many years a respectable and industrious inhabitant of this city” (Maryland Gazette [Annapolis], 16 December 1830, p. 3). The couple are recorded as marrying in Anne Arundel county in 1798 and he is buried in Annapolis’ Saint Anne’s Cemetery.