Rebecca White, aka Mrs. Timothy Pickering, was born in England and came over to this country in 1765 at age 11. Eleven years later (1776) she married Col. Timothy Pickering~a graduate of Harvard in 1763, admitted to the bar in 1768, & joined Washington's army in 1777. This prominent gentleman was Secretary of War in 1795, and was a Massachusetts state senator from 1803-1811.
The couple had 10 children, 8 sons and the two youngest were daughters.
"THERE is no more beautiful example of Stuart's skill than this portrait of Mrs. Timothy Pickering, painted between 1816 and 1818. Mrs. Pickering is represented seated in so natural an attitude that there is no suggestion of being "posed." Her black silk gown with folds of soft muslin about the throat, her cap of the same sheer material, trimmed with lace, and the ermine-bordered mantle of a delicious shade of old rose color which has fallen from her shoulders, are all painted with a care and finish seldom bestowed by Stuart upon the accessories of his portraits, while on the finely modeled face with its delicate flesh-tones his brush has evidently lingered with loving touch."
Masters in Art; a series of illustrated monographs. Bates and Guild Co, Boston 1906. p 37
From Lawrence Park:
Boston. Begun in 1816 and finished in 1818. Half-length, seated slightly to the right, in a carved gilded Empire chair, with her brown eyes to the spectator. Her hair is completely hidden by a white lace-trimmed handkerchief worn as a turban. She wears a black silk dress with a white muslin kerchief open at the throat, showing a necklace of pearls, and fastened with a lozenge-shaped ruby pin; an old rose velvet cloak trimmed with ermine surrounds her body and lies in folds on her lap, where it is held by her right hand, on the third finger of which is a gold ring. The backgound is plain, of greenish-brown and gray tones, with a narrow pilaster showing at the right.
1 comment:
Oh that we could see it in color.
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