Lot 70: JOHN RITTO PENNIMAN, 1782-1841

A YOUNG GIRL WEARING A BRILLIANT YELLOW DRESS WITH PINK HAT POSED IN A LANDSCAPE WITH HER PET DOG AND A VIEW OF THE CHARLES RIVER WITH THE BOSTON STATE HOUSE IN THE BACKGROUND: A PORTRAIT OF A.E. CREHORE AE 1 YEAR & 6 MO.

A YOUNG GIRL WEARING A BRILLIANT YELLOW DRESS WITH PINK HAT POSED IN A LANDSCAPE WITH HER PET DOG AND A VIEW OF THE CHARLES RIVER WITH THE BOSTON STATE HOUSE IN THE BACKGROUND: A PORTRAIT OF A.E. CREHORE AE 1 YEAR & 6 MO.

measurements
11.6 by 7.8 in.

alternate measurements
29.5 by 19.7 cm

signed and dated J.R.P. Pinxt 1836 along the bottom

this watercolor portrait is of Ann Elizabeth Crehore (1834-1917) of Milton, Massachusetts. The view behind her looks north toward Boston from Milton Hill and includes a view of the State House and the Park Street Church. To the right in the foreground is Governor Hutchinson's house and summer house with the Naponsit River to the left. According to Carol Damon Andrews in Antiques, July 1981, the bunch of grapes hanging from the tree may refer to the Diana grape raised by Ann Elizabeth's relation Diana Crehore of Milton and accepted by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1843.

John Ritto Penniman (1783-1841) was a portrait and ornamental painter and lithographer. Born January 30, 1783, at Milford (Mass.), Penniman married Susannah Bartlett in Boston in September 1805 and worked there as a painter until 1827. He was apparently on close terms with Gilbert Stuart and may have studied with him.

According to Mrs. Little, Ann Elizabeth Crehore was born in 1834 into a family from Dorchester, Massachusetts. She married Henry Reed in 1860 in Providence and died June 14, 1917 in Roxbury. She is buried in the Cedar Grove Cemetery in Dorchester, Massachusetts. This watercolor came from the collection of Charles L. Kaufman, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

watercolor, pen and ink on paper

PROVENANCE

Israel Sack Inc., New York
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1976
Sotheby's, New York, The Bertram K. Little and Nina Fletcher Little Collection, January 29, 1994, lot 339

LITERATURE

Nina Fletcher Little, Little by Little, 1984, p. 154, fig. 205
Carol Damon Andrews, John Ritto Penniman (1782-1841), An Ingenious New England Artist," Magazine Antiques, July 1981, p. 147-170
American Antiques from the Israel Sack Collection, vol. V, 1974, p. 1284, fig. P4263