ca. 1820

American Paintings and Sculpture


Mary Way, a native of New London, Connecticut, distinguished herself as one of the earliest professional, female miniaturists in America. She presumably received her education at an academy for women in Connecticut, where she would have learned painting and needlework. Beginning in the 1790s, Way made her first miniatures of family and friends, some in watercolor on paper and others in the "dressed" style—a collaged form of portrait. At age forty-two, she moved to New York to pursue her work in miniatures. When blindness ended Way’s artistic career, forcing her to move back to New London in 1820, the American Academy of the Fine Arts held a benefit exhibition for her.


Part of a portrait trio of the New London family, this portrait depicts Elizabeth Briggs wearing a black ruff around her neck, indicating that she is in mourning. She and her husband, Charles Briggs (1969.37.1), may have lost their child to an early death. In the portrait trio, husband and wife face each other in identical wood frames, made to hang on a wall or in a cabinet. In contrast, rendered in exacting profile, the portrait of the child rests in a locket rather than a frame (1969.37.3). A lock of the child’s blond hair is set into the locket’s reverse. It therefore may have served as a wearable shrine for the parents.

Medium

Watercolor on ivory

Dimensions

1 7/8 × 1 7/8 in. (4.8 × 4.8 cm)
framed: 4 7/16 × 4 1/4 in. (11.3 × 10.8 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Mildred S. Prince

Accession Number

1969.37.2

Culture
Period

1th century

Classification
Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Bibliography
  • Robin Jaffee Frank, Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 200, 202, fig. 104
Object copyright
Additional information

Object/Work type

miniatures (paintings), portraits

Technical metadata and APIs

IIIF

Open in Mirador

View IIIF manifest

The International Image Interoperability Framework, or IIIF, is an open standard for delivering high-quality, attributed digital objects online at scale. Visit iiif.io to learn more

Linked Art

API response for this object

Linked Art is a Community working together to create a shared Model based on Linked Open Data to describe Art.