Electa Barrell, Mrs. Samuel Wilder
Artist
Samuel Lovett Waldo
(American, 1783–1861)
Artist
William Jewett
(American, about 1789–1874)
Dateabout 1830
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionscanvas: 91 x 71.1 cm (35 13/16 x 28 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineGift of Lawrence Alan Haines in memory of his father Wilder Haydn Haines
Object number1981.332
DescriptionElecta Barrell Wilder (Mrs. Sampson Wilder) is a half-length portrait of a seated woman. The sitter’s head is turned slightly to the right, whereas her shoulders are nearly in three-quarters view and her lower body is in right profile. The sitter’s brown hair is braided and pinned on top of her head in a coil; she has tight curls at the sides of her face. Wilder’s skin is pale pink, with darker pink on the cheeks. Her eyes are blue.The sitter wears a long-sleeve, rose-colored dress with a three-layered, cape-like collar that covers the shoulders. The dress is decorated with ribbons at the bodice and wrist; the collar and sleeve are trimmed with velvet that matches the color of the dress. At her neck, Mrs. Wilder wears a white, three-tiered ruff with an abstracted floral design that is comprised of an oval center and eight petals. Her sleeves are trimmed in white cuffs. A white shawl with a lavish border of yellow, orange, and red flowers, and green foliage is draped over the chair in which the sitter is posed; the shawl has fringe along its edge.
Mrs. Wilder sits in an armchair with a tan, upholstered armrest. The chair is decorated with classicized, foliate carving on the vertical element of the armrest. The sitter’s proper right arm bends at the elbow and her forearm rests on the arm of the chair. Her fingertips curl slightly under and are thereby cast into shadow by the light that falls from the upper left to the lower right. That light produces a shadow of the figure on the wall at lower right. There are also shadows under the ruff and collar of the dress, under the arm on the armrest and on the woman’s lap, and throughout the folds of the textiles. The olive-colored background is darker at the left side of the composition and lighter to the right of the figure.
Label TextThis portrait was painted after Electa and Samuel Wilder permanently returned to America from Paris, where they had been living for six years. It harmonizes with John Vanderlyn’s earlier depiction of Mr. Wilder, also on view in this gallery. Young Mrs. Wilder’s seated posture, with hand trailing over the arm of a chair, mirrors her husband’s pose. Her elaborate dress with a three-tiered capelet, gathered bows, and exuberant lace collar is up-to-the-minute French fashion, as is her high-piled hair. The team of Samuel Lovett Waldo and William Jewett was one of the most successful artistic partnerships of the nineteenth century. Connecticut-born Waldo trained in London with Benjamin West, then took on New York native Jewett as an apprentice in 1812. Although Waldo supposedly concentrated on faces and Jewett on backgrounds and accessories, the two were so intertwined stylistically that it is hard to distinguish between them.ProvenanceThe sitter, Electa Barrell Wilder (1797–1878) and her husband Sampson V. S. Wilder (1780–1865). By descent in the family to her great-granddaughter Rosalie V. Halsey, by 1917; her cousin’s widow Mrs. Edward Wilder Haines; to her son Wilder Haydn Haines (1893–1980); to his son Lawrence Alan Haines, who donated the portrait to the Worcester Art Museum.
On View
On viewThere are no works to discover for this record.