Description:
Portrait of Lurana Chadwick Towner of Williamstown, Massachusetts, by the artist James Brown (active 1806-1808). William Towner (1756-1812) was born in New Fairfield, Connecticut, the son of Zacheus (1729-1814) and his wife. William Towner and Lurana (or Luranna) Chadwick (1773-1841) married between 1795 and 1800; his first wife Elizabeth (Betsey) Ramsdell died in 1795. William Towner relocated to Williamstown by 1787, where he met his second wife. Lurana Towner is painted in a blue-gray Empire-waisted dress seated in a Windsor side chair holding a book, a column behind her. Canvas verso, very faint inscription, at top left, just below strainer member: “Ja Brown Pinx/ Dec 25th. 1807” Currently in a modern frame. The artist James Brown, who produced at least seven signed works, was largely unknown until an article by Elizabeth V. Warren called "The Mystery of J. Brown" was published in Folk Art, in the Fall 1998. There is speculation that Ammi Phillips studied under Brown in the early 19th century. There is a red lead ground layer present. The paint appears to be oil and is thinly applied. In her book Between the Rivers: Itinerant Painters from the Connecticut to the Hudson, Colleen Cowles Heslip relates that “J. Brown’s method of working [began] with a thin red lead ground, which can be seen penetrating to the reverse of the primary support. He would then apply a thin gray tinted oil paint as an imprimatur layer.”). The ground and the paint extend over the fold-over edges, as well as covering the older tacks, suggesting that the painting was stretched before the ground was applied. This portrait is paired with her husband General William Towner (See HD 2016.24.1). Provenance: Descended through the Towner family, and then to the current owners from their aunt Betty Schwinn, whose mother Ruth Freed married John F. Towner late in life.
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