Robert Peckham Unsung MRS. CHARLES COOLIDGE (NEE NANCY SPAULDINGI 1840-1850 Oil on canvas 30 26" Collection of the Forbush Memorial Library CHARLES COOLIDGE 1840-1850 Oil on canvas 30 25" Collection of the Forbush Memorial Library
obert Peckham, whose name is familiar to many modern
lovers of early nineteenth-century folk painting (even though his actual paintings may not be), was a master among the rural itinerant painters of his time. Unfortunately,
his work—unlike that of Ammi Phillips and Joseph Whiting Stock, for example—has not been studied, analyzed, and categorized in great detail. Attributions to him must therefore be based mainly on style and on information passed down through generations of owners of paintings.
38 SPRING 1996 FOLK ART