John Brewster, Jr.
John Brewster, Jr. (1766–1854)
Louella Juliette Brewster, age 13, 1821
Oil on canvas, 26 x 21 in.
This work retains its original narrow gilt frame.
Provenance: The Bartlett family homestead, Kingston, New Hampshire, and by descent in the family to 1986; “Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Folk Paintings and Chinese Export Porcelain,” Sotheby’s, New York, October 24–25, 1986, lot 160; Collection of Jon Graeter (1932– 2013), Cincinnati, Ohio; “Important Collection of Jon Graeter,” Main Auction Galleries, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio, February 28, 2016, lot 156; David A. Schorsch and Eileen M. Smiles, Woodbury, Connecticut, 2016; private collection
Literature: Harlan Lane, A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster, Jr. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004), pp. 48, 142
This precisely rendered portrait survives in an untouched and pristine condition seldom encountered in major portraits by John Brewster, Jr. It was part of an important documented commission for Brewster to paint portraits of members of the prominent Bartlett family of Kingston, New Hampshire. Between mid-May and June of 1821, Brewster produced oil paintings of Dr. Levi Bartlett and his wife Abigail Stevens Bartlett, and their children: Louella Juliette Bartlett, age thirteen, Junia Loretta Bartlett, age eleven, and Levi Stevens Bartlett, age nine.
Louella Juliette Bartlett (1807–1857) was the granddaughter of Dr. Josiah Bartlett (1729– 1795), a native of Amesbury, Massachusetts, who moved to Kingston, New Hampshire, in 1750 to practice medicine. He was a New Hampshire delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775 and 1776, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. During the Revolutionary War he was a colonel in the Seventh Regiment of the New Hampshire Militia. In 1778 he served as a New Hampshire delegate to the Second Continental Congress, which convened in York, Pennsylvania, and signed the Articles of Confederation. In New Hampshire after the war, he became chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, justice of the Superior Court, and the state’s first governor. He was one of the founders and first president of the New Hampshire Medical Society. Like his distinguished father, Levi Bartlett had a multifaceted and distinguished career in medicine, government, and law. He filled many offices of responsibility in his native state, as a legislator, chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, judge of the circuit court, and postmaster in Kingston. He also served as a colonel in the state militia.