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Zedekiah Belknap was an itinerant portrait painter working
in VT, NH, MA and New York City. He was born in Auburn (formerly
Ward) MA but grew up and was buried in Weathersfield, VT. He
came from a family of farmers and was the only one to attend
college, graduating from Dartmouth with a divinity degree in
1807. Although a family document states that he served as a chaplain
in the War of 1812, that is the only record of him having pursued
a career in the ministry, although it has been speculated that
he combined circuit preaching with painting. He appears to have
had no formal art training, and his first known portraits date
to the year of his Dartmouth graduation. He continued to paint
until at least 1848. (See Elizabeth R. Mankin, "Zedekiah
Belknap," The Magazine Antiques vol. 110, November,
1976, pgs. 1056-1070 and Beatrix Rumford, American Folk Portraits
in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation: 1981, pg 57.)
Today, Zedekiah Belknap's portraits are in major Folk Art
collections, including the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art
Collection, the Fenimore Art Museum, and the Detroit Institute
of Arts, as well as many important private collections. William
Gerdts in his well-known 3-volume work, Art Across America, uses
Belknap's portrait of Sarah Minot Melville of ca. 1830 on the
dust cover of volume 1, The East and the Mid-Atlantic.
After attempting an academic style in his early career, Belknap
quickly developed his "folk art" formula: boldly outlined
figures and features, with little modeling; one side of the nose
visible and outlined with a reddish shadow; and lavish details
of costume and hairstyle.
A date of 1833 or 1838 is written among the lace of Isobel's
bonnet. The earlier date seems more likely on the basis of the
style of her dress, which predates 1835, when women's dress shoulders
collapsed "overnight," according to Alden O'Brien,
Curator of Costume and Textiles at the Daughters of the American
Revolution Museum in Washington, DC.
The portrait is in its original grain painted frame, probably
executed by Belknap himself. The canvas is unlined and there
is minor in-painting throughout. |
