unknown woman. Among his last known portraits, painted between 1837 and 1844 when Bradley resided at 134 Spring Street, New York City, are those of Mr. and Mrs. James Patterson Crawford of Freehold, New Jersey. His last dated portrait, of M.E. Fox, is signed "By J. Bradley, 134 Spring Street, New York, December 1845"; the identity of the subject has not been established. Nothing is known of Bradley following his listing in the 1847 New York City directory. The first comprehensive report on the artists previously known only as R.W. and S.A. Shute appeared in 1978)8 Since the 1937 discovery by Edith Gregor Halpert of a pair of oil paintings bearing the signature of the Shutes, the identity of the two had puzzled those interested in American folk art. Helen Kellogg's investigation finally established the fact that they were Ruth Whittier Shute and her husband, Dr. Samuel A. Shute. A cousin of noted poet John Greenleaf Whittier, Ruth Whittier was born in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1803, and in 1827 married Samuel Addison Shute, a physician of Weare, New Hampshire. Until the death of Dr. Shute at Champlain, New York, in 1836 at the age of thirty-two, the Shutes spent most of their time as itinerant portrait painters in New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Following her husband's death, Ruth Whittier Shute continued as an itinerant painter of portraits, apparently until her second marriage, in 1840, to Alpha Tarbell. The checklist that accompanied Mrs. Kellogg's original article included a total of eighty-nine portraits in oil, pastel, and watercolor. Three small watercolors on paper are identified as being of miniature size." Three others are described as "miniature oil on ivory," but one of these (number 52), Woman in a White Bonnet, is a small watercolor on paper. Listing number 45 for Amasa Edes, described as a miniature oil on ivory, reports that its present location was unknown. Entry number 46, for Sarah Hart Edes (Mrs. Amasa Edes), also described as a miniature oil on ivory, is in reality not an oil but a watercolor on ivory; it can be assumed that the portrait of her husband was the same. The portrait of Sarah Edes is the only existent miniature painted by the Shutes of which we are aware (see Plate III). A pencil inscription on the reverse of the ivory reads as follows: "by Mrs. Shute/Sept 28, 1833/Mrs A Edes/ Sept 28/1833." The first reference to this painting appears in a 1978 article, "Mrs. R.W. and S.A. Shute" by Bert and Gail Savage.20 They state, "Three are miniature portraits on ivory with at least one being signed by Mrs. R.W." One of these is of Mrs. Amasa Edes, a photograph of which is accompanied by the following text: "At the time this was bought from the Edes family, about ten years ago, there was also the portrait of Mr. Edes, we are told. His location today is
52 SPRING 1995 FOLK ART
unknown."2 'Amasa was born on March 21, 1792, in Antrim, New Hampshire, and died in Newport, New Hampshire, on October 8, 1869. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1817, and studying law with attorneys in Belfast, Maine, and Keene, New Hampshire, Amasa Edes was admitted to the bar in 1822. For many years, he was president of the bar in Sullivan County and, in 1834, represented Newport in the state legislature; in addition, he served at times as principal of the New Ipswich Academy and of the Newport Academy, and was active in the temperance movement.22 He married Sarah Hart on March 20, 1822, in Keene, New Hampshire, her hometown.23, 24 We have thus far been unable to find a birth or death record or genealogical data for her. Pictured in the article by the Savages, the ivory is in an oval metal locket. When next pictured, in a 1979 publication,' the painting is correctly described as a watercolor on ivory, and appears in the same metal frame. However, when the painting first came to our attention, in 1994, it had been removed from its original locket-type frame and was matted in a black wooden frame.
The painting, which measures 24/4 by 2/ 1 4 inches, depicts a centrally placed young woman seated on a sofa with a brown-stained crest rail and black fabric held by largeheaded upholstery tacks. The background, stippled in shades of blue and brown, does not show the linear striations often seen in Mrs. Shute's large watercolors. As in many of her larger portraits, the body is positioned frontally, but the head is turned very slightly to the subject's right. Facial features are depicted in a manner seen in many of the larger works: eyebrows are extremely long, hair is piled high on her head, and prominent depressions are present just below the center of the lower lip and just above the center of the upper lip. Also prominent is a lengthy gold necklace and a neck piece held together by a brooch. Whereas John Bradley and the Shutes produced only a small number of miniature portraits, Henry Walton was far more prolific in this respect. He was first brought to general attention by the reproduction of his portrait of J.P. Jenks on the cover of the November 1937 issue of The Magazine Antiques. It was not until twenty-one years later that Agnes Halsey Jones, in her 1958 catalog for the exhi-
PLATE V UNIDENTIFIED GENTLEMAN Attributed to Henry Walton c. 1840 Watercolor on ivory 2/ 1 2 2" Private collection
PLATE VI UNIDENTIFIED LADY Attributed to Henry Walton c. 1840 Watercolor on ivory 2/ 1 2 2" Private collection