Description:
woman; portrait; costume/uniform
Label Text:
Mabel Little Billings and her husband, Lieutenant David Billings, were residents of Hatfield, Massachusetts. She is shown wearing a dress that was fashionable several years before her portrait was painted. It is suggested that both this portrait and that of her husband were commissioned by the Billings' children as remembrances; perhaps this accounts for their formality.
The itinerant painter William Jennys was recorded in Deerfield in 1801, following a steady route northward up the Connecticut Valley through Westfield to Hatfield, where he painted the Billings' portraits. His work has sometimes been confused with that of Richard Jennys (active 1760-1801), who may have been his father or older brother. Both artists worked in Milford, Connecticut, where William's earliest paintings were produced.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1972.41.2 |
