Circa 1835, watercolor on ivory, unsigned, the brown-eyed sitter attired in black coat with white stock and points, presented behind glass in an ebonized frame.

Frame 6 x 5 1/2 in.; painting 3 x 2 5/8 in.

Collection of a Gentleman

Estate of Patricia B. Wells, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, and by descent through the Brown Family.

Freeman's, November 12, 2014, Pennsylvania Sale, Lot 121.

Exhibited: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, "Exhibition of Miniatures," April 22-May 6, 1893.

The younger brother of the miniature painter Anson Dickinson, Daniel moved to New Haven around 1812; there he and the brothers Nathaniel (1796-1881) and Simeon Smith Jocelyn (1799-1879) studied draftsmanship from drawings and books. In 1818, Dickinson moved to Philadelphia, where he painted miniatures and, after 1830, oil portraits. Beginning in 1819 he exhibited annually at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and often at the Artists’ Fund Society. By early August 1840 he had moved his family residence from Philadelphia across the river to Camden, New Jersey, where he opened a rose and grape nursery in 1850. Dickinson was very successful until the rapid development of photography curtailed his portrait practice; he seems to have made portraits until the mid-1850s.

Source: Barratt,Carrie Rebora and Zabar, Lori. American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010. pg. 140.

Good estate condition; later reproduction frame.

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