Lot 1244: ASAHEL LYNDE POWERS American 1813-1843 Pair

ASAHEL LYNDE POWERS
American, 1813-1843
Pair of portraits depicting Daniel Griswold and his daughter Louisa Griswold Field. Daniel was born in 1792 in Springfield, Vermont, and Louisa was born in 1808 and married Abner Field, the first postmaster of North Springfield, Vermont. The portrait of Daniel is signed lower right "Painted by Powers & Rice...1835 Daniel Griswold Tavern Owner No. Springfield". The portrait of Louisa is signed lower right "P.T.D. by Powers & Rice". It is also inscribed on the reverse "Portrait of Louisa Griswold Field painted in her wedding dress".
Asahel Lynde Powers was an itinerant portrait painter initially based in Vermont, but travelled extensively from Vermont to Illinois, where he would eventually pass away in 1843. These portraits are typical of Power's early Vermont work in that they are on panels, whereas he switched to canvas later in the 1830s for ease of transport.

Note: Little is known of the individual "Rice". It was thought that Powers and Rice knew each other from work in the coach factory, and that Rice may have produced the frames for Powers. See Sotheby's New York, January 20, 2006, Lot #360.
Exhibited: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection, Williamsburg, VA: "Asahel Powers: Painter of Vermont Faces", October 14-December 3, 1973.
Illustrated in the exhibition catalog by Nina Fletcher Little: Asahel Power, Painter of Vermont Faces. Plates 37 & 38, p.38-39
Letter dated 1960 from Thurston Thacher of Thurston & Doris Thacher Antiques, Hyde Park, NY, to Dr. Silverstein, telling him of portraits and primitives he'll have soon, one of them being the portrait of Daniel Griswold. He refers to the painter being in the June 1959 Antiques magazine.
A 1975 letter from an Associate Curator of the Rockefeller collection refers to four more signed "Powers and Rice" portraits of Griswold family members, recently found in storage at the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology.
Oil on panel, each 33" x 26 1/4". Framed.