Schuyler Limner

Schuyler Limner (Nehemiah Partridge?): Colonel Pieter Schuyler , around 1715/1717, Albany City Hall

When Schuyler Limner (or Schuyler Painter ) is a portrait painter referred to the 1715 to 1725 in the region around New York in New England worked. The artist, who is not known by name, received his emergency name after his portrait of Colonel Pieter Schuyler.

activity

The Schuyler Limner belongs to the group of Limner , traveling artists of European origin in the early colonial times. He was believed to have worked in the Albany , Schenectady , Kingston, and New York areas himself. His first known picture, taken around 1715, depicts Colonel Pieter Schuyler, the first mayor of Albany. He then painted more pictures of members of the Schuyler family, which indicates support from Colonel Pieter Schuyler. Up to 43, sometimes even 80 portraits are ascribed to Schuyler Limner ; however, it is controversial whether all of these portraits really come from him. It is believed that four to nine other painters were still active in the region during his time.

The Schuyler Limner could possibly also some portraits in the more distant colony Virginia have painted.

After 1725 no more pictures by Schuyler Limner can be proven.

Painting style

The Schuyler Limner is one of the painters born in New England, he continues the tradition of the self-taught Limner of the early colonial period. In his pictures elements of the Flemish Baroque can be seen . He probably got to know them through copper engravings by the painters Peter Paul Rubens , Anthonis van Dyck and Peter Lely , which were imported from the Netherlands. His pictures are characterized by a strong light-dark contrast.

identification

It is suggested that the Schuyler Limner is Nehemiah Partridge. This identification is based on analyzes of the portraits of Evert Wendell and his wife, the origin of the pictures and the reference to Partridge can be proven. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1683, Nehemiah Partridge was a paint trader, artisan and painter until he died around 1737.

It presumes that the Schuyler Limner and the previously mostly independently performed Aetatis Suae Limner are identical.

Works (selection)

• Colonel Pieter Schuyler , (around 1715/1717), Albany City Hall
• Mr. Van Vechten , around 1719, National Gallery of Art, Washington, inv. No. 1947.17.74
• Mr. Willson , c.1720, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Inv. No. 1957.11.9
• Portrait of a Lady (Tryntle Otlen Veeder?), Ca.1720/1725, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. No. 1977.135
• Gerrit Veeder , Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, NY
• Governor Richard Ward, Rhode Island , Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport
• Thomas Van Alstyne , 1721, New-York Historical Society, Inv. No. 1930.6 (today identified as the work of Nehemiah Partridge)
• Mrs. Thomas Van Alstyne , 1721, New-York Historical Society, Inv. No. 1930.7 (now identified as the work of Nehemiah Partridge)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ George Michael Cohen: "American Art Essentials (Essentials Study Guides)". Piscataway, NJ, 1999, p. 15
2. ↑ James Thomas Flexner: History of American Painting Volume 1: First Flowers of Our Wilderness . Boston, MA, 1947, pp. 13-27, pp. 76-84
3. ↑ Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection u. a. (Ed.): Merchants and planters of the Upper Hudson Valley, 1700-1750., Williamsburg, VA, 1967
4. ^ Mary C. Black: "Pieter Vanderlyn and Other Limners of the Upper Hudson." In: Ian MG Quimby (ed.): American Painting to 1776: A Reappraisal. Charlottesville, VA, 1971, pp. 222-234
5. ^ John Caldwell, Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, Dale T. Johnson: American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1. New York 1994, p. 6
6. ↑ George Michael Cohen: American Art Essentials (Essentials Study Guides) . Piscataway, NJ, 1999, p. 15
7. ^ Mary C. Black, "Contributions Toward A History of Early Eighteenth-Century New York Portraiture: The Identification of the Aetatis Suae and Wendell Limners." In: The American Art Journal 12 (1980): pp. 4-31
8. ↑ Janet R. MacFarlane: The Wendell Family Portraits . In: The Art Quarterly, 25/4 (1962), pp. 385-392
9. ↑ Rodric H. Blackburn: Partridge, Nehemiah . In: Gerard C. Wertkin (Ed.): Encyclopedia of American Folk Art, New York, 2004, pp. 418-419
10. ^ Mary C. Black: The Case Reviewed. In: Arts in Virginia 10 (1969), pp. 12-20
11. ^ New-York Historical Society (ed.): New York Painting Begins: Eighteenth-Century Portraits at the New-York Historical Society. Exhibition September 2009 to March 2010 (press releases at www.nyhistory.org, accessed November 2015)
12. ^ New-York Historical Society (ed.): New York Painting Begins: Eighteenth-Century Portraits at the New-York Historical Society. Exhibition September 2009 to March 2010 (press releases at www.nyhistory.org, accessed November 2015)

literature

• James Thomas Flexner: American Painting: First Flowers of Our Wilderness . Boston, 1947
• The Albany Institute of History and Art (Eds.): The Schuyler Painter, The Gansevoort Limner, Aetis Suae Paintings, Anonymous Portraits, Religious Paintings - Hudson Valley Paintings 1700-1750 . Albany 1959
• Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection u. a. (Ed.): Merchants and planters of the Upper Hudson Valley, 1700-1750 . Williamsburg, VA, 1967
• Mary C. Black: Pieter Vanderlyn and Other Limners of the Upper Hudson. In: Ian MG Quimby (ed.): American Painting to 1776: A Reappraisal. Charlottesville, Virginia, 1971, pp. 222-234.
• Mary C. Black: Contributions Toward A History of Early Eighteenth-Century New York Portraiture: The Identification of the Aetatis Suae and Wendell Limners. In: The American Art Journal 12 (1980), pp. 4-31.
• Deborah Chotner (with contributions by Julie Aronson, Sarah D. Cash and Laurie Weitzenkorn): American Naive Paintings. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art. Systematic Catalog . Washington DC, 1992
• John Caldwell, Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, Dale T. Johnson: American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1 . New York 1994