Mrs. Asa Benjamin
William Jennys·1795
Historical Context
William Jennys was a New England itinerant portrait painter active in the 1790s and early 1800s whose sober, direct likenesses documented the appearance of prosperous New England families with a quality that sits between the provincial folk portrait tradition and more sophisticated academic painting. This 1795 portrait of Mrs. Asa Benjamin belongs to the tradition of New England marital portrait pairs — this canvas was presumably paired with a portrait of her husband — through which the merchant and professional class of the new republic established its visual identity. Jennys's subjects sit slightly stiffly before the painter, their faces rendered with honest attention to physiognomic truth, their costumes documenting the modest prosperity of post-Revolutionary New England. His work is now valued precisely for its documentary directness and its record of an otherwise unrepresented segment of American society.
Technical Analysis
Jennys employs the simplified conventions of the New England portrait tradition — flat, even lighting on the face, dark costume and neutral ground, direct frontal or three-quarter gaze. The face is the focus of his careful attention, rendered with greater precision than the broadly handled dress and setting.
Provenance
The sitter's husband, Asa Benjamin [1763-1833], Stratford, Connecticut; by descent in their family to Hannah Maria Benjamin Russell [1809-1894, Mrs. Lewis H. Russell], Stratford;[1] by descent to her granddaughter, Frances B. Russell, Stratford, by 1941.[2] (Mr. Aarons, Ansonia, Connecticut); sold 1952 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch (perhaps with Frederick Fuessenich as agent); gift 1953 to NGA. [1] Robyn Asleson, curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery, kindly brought to the NGA's attention the inclusion of this painting, as well as NGA 1953.5.19 and 1953.5.21, in an 1889 exhibition in Stratford (see her e-mail of 17 August 2020 to NGA curator Sarah Cash, in NGA curatorial files). The paintings were lent by Hannah M.B. Russell, indicating they had remained in the sitters' family, information that was not known when the NGA catalogue of its naïve American paintings was published in 1992. [2] Frederic F. Sherman, in _Richard Jennys, New England Portrait Painter_, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1941: 64, reproduces this painting with the credit line, "Property of Miss Frances B. Russell." On p. 65, Sherman notes that he found the painting in Stratford, Connecticut, presumably where Miss Russell lived.
