Eminently Artful: Part Two (Deacon Robert Peckham)
In which “eminently artless” turns into “more than average merit.”
Last time, I wrote about Peckham’s portrait of the famous poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, explaining the good Deacon’s ties to the anti-slavery cause. After all, there’s plenty to discuss about the strength of his beliefs, not just his artistic skills. Regrettably, this led to the disappointing finale: Whittier didn’t like Peckham’s portraits, and considered him “eminently artless.”
Or did he?
My post-article follow-up research revealed an astounding revelation: Whittier actually approved of Peckham’s portrait, saying that it captured his youthful image. He may or may not have once called him “eminently artless,” but he liked the picture well enough.
[Peckham] succeeded in inducing Whittier to give him the desired sittings, and the poet just then being busy with his farm, and with his first pamphlet on slavery, "Justice and Expediency," entirely forgot the matter, and never saw the sketch that had been made of him until near the close of his life, when Mr. Alfred S. Roe, of Worcester, sent him a photograph of it. In his acknowledgment of it he said: "It is the face of a stranger, but I doubt not is a likeness of the young Whittier." It represents a fresh-faced young man, with black hair, and a little stiff in attitude and garb.
This comes from the manuscript of Whittier’s biographer Samuel Pickard (a credible source if there ever was one). Whittier was not criticizing Peckham’s abilities. Instead, he was musing on how his own looks had changed from age, time, and inevitable wear and tear. It was an image of his younger self, but that had been a whole lifetime ago.
This discovery was a revelation to me, but a welcome one. What a relief to know that Whittier, who Peckham so admired, had something flattering to say after all! And Pickard, the biographer, was not predisposed towards criticism. Retelling the Whittier story, he describes Peckham’s work in reasonably positive terms: “with no idealizing in his sittings, but more than average merit.”
It’s a far cry from the original “eminently artless” quote, which was supposedly quoted from an 1880 letter from Whittier to one “Dr. Crowell of Haverhill, Massachusetts.” I wrote to the Houghton Library at Harvard University, which holds the Whittier archives, in search of this letter. After some correspondence to pin down the details, the resourceful librarian, Lee Davis, told me:
I still have not been able to track down this letter from Whittier in our collections, but I found a document quoting it in the Samuel Pickard notes relating to his Whittier biography that is interesting… I cannot determine which date and name is correct since I have not found the original letter either way. It is possible the letter does not exist in our collection and that researchers have been quoting Pickard's notes regarding the letter instead of the original.
Lee’s concerns were very justified. We both did our best to unearth further primary source material, and the Harvard archives came up dry, except for that one document from Pickard’s files. However, Whittier may have still said the “eminently artless” quote: at the bottom of the typewritten page (attached here in its entirety), we can spot a note, presumably by Pickard, citing “a letter to James R. Osgood in regard to this portrait, written in 1874.”
It’s worth pointing out that Pickard must have been confident enough to type up the “likeness of the young Whittier” anecdote, though we can see he did amend a few errors on the page, striking out the “first portrait of Whittier” section (the first was a miniature in 1829 or 30 by an artist named Porter.) However, it would seem that neither the positive nor the negative quotes in Pickard’s documents can be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. The complimentary conversation with Mr. Roe of Worcester, who finally showed him Peckham’s painting, is effectively hearsay. And the critical letter could not be located, let alone pinning down the correct recipient and year. Aside from Pickard’s handwritten scrawl, there’s no proof of “eminently artless” — and surely, Whittier’s actual opinion on the portrait would supersede his guess at how it might’ve turned out.
However, miracle of miracles, this hefty 1950 book with abundant information on John Greenleaf Whittier revealed an astonishing quotation among the “Early Likenesses:”
Whittier has endorsed on the back: “From an oil painting by Dea. Peckham at the age of 23.”
The photograph dates to 1889, and Whittier died in 1890. So he must have seen it right “near the close of his life,” exactly as Pickard wrote. The story of Whittier’s final approval of Peckham’s portrait is undoubtedly real.
So where did we go wrong? How did “eminently artless” end up being cited so many times by later scholars, instead of Whittier’s praise? And — presuming the quote is legitimate — why would Whittier have held such a low opinion of Peckham’s work in the first place?
In fact, Peckham’s brother, Rev. Samuel Howland Peckham, and John Greenleaf Whittier knew each other well. They may even have been personal friends. This was possibly how Peckham heard about Whittier and gained such a high opinion of him, and how Whittier was persuaded to sit for a portrait — perhaps as a favor for his friend’s brother.
Both Samuel and John were closely involved in the founding of the Haverhill Anti-Slavery Society in April of 1834. Whittier became Corresponding Secretary, a role well-suited for his way with words. Rev. Samuel Howland Peckham became one of two vice-presidents of the newly minted organization. And in June of 1834, their names appeared alongside each other as members of the New England Anti-Slavery Convention. (The Liberator recorded both events.)
It’s fair to think, then, that Whitter might’ve formed an opinion of Peckham’s art based on his portraits of Samuel Howland, his wife Sarah, and their three children, painted in the early 1830s.
They’re perfectly fine portraits, but they’re early work, and a bit rough around the edges. I’ll admit, I can see where Whittier might not have ended up as the biggest fan – but Peckham improved with time and practice, as do we all.
The connection between Whittier and Peckham’s brother is addressed in Ann Howard’s 1980s presentation to the Westminster Historical Society:
Just to be sure, I asked Deborah Chotner, renowned Peckham scholar and curator of the “Hobby Horse” exhibition. She told me:
I never did run across anything that suggested Peckham was a farmer, but it doesn't seem totally out of the question that he might have had some kind of subsistence crops growing on his property.
That seems reasonable. I’ve been to Peckham’s house. There was no farm there!
Instead, by 1833, Peckham was a professional artist in the literal sense. He had abandoned the modest work of commercial sign painting, and was fully committed to portraiture. In fact, we can track his career aspirations through local newspaper advertisements, alongside with his brother Samuel H. Peckham (the very same one mentioned above.) In 1815, in Northampton, they advertised for a “house, sign, and ornamental painting” business that sold chairs, no portraits mentioned. (This was probably an extension of the business Peckham opened in 1814, which lists portraits first among his painting talents.) In 1816, however, the Robert & Samuel Howland paint shop closed up, probably so Robert could pursue his interest in portraiture. Hopefully there was no bad blood between them.
In 1827, Peckham was advertising for his business in Westminster, co-owned with Salmon Miller; the ad only mentions portraits halfway down the listing. In 1829, he’d moved on again: the business now belonged to Salmon Miller and Francis Wood, specializing in “House, Carriage, and Sign Painting,” no portraits to be found. Evidently, Peckham decided to specialize in portraiture, rather than wasting his time on chairs and tables. And in 1833, Peckham kept an office in Worcester to accommodate his portrait clients — he had expanded his scope beyond Westminster, and had gone into business for himself, inviting patrons to travel to him. A far cry from a “plain old farmer”!
(All ads found via Genealogybank's newspaper database.)
The “farmer” misnomer wouldn’t be the first mistake regarding Peckham. The American Antiquarian Society’s librarian (1827-1835) Christopher Columbus Baldwin, included a scathing review of Peckham in his journals in 1834, which also seems to be full of errors, misconceptions, and outright insults. Read it yourself:
March 24, M., 1834. I had a visit today from Robert Peckham, a portrait painter. He now lives in Westminster, where he has resided for the [last] twelve years. He has also lived in Boston and in various other places… Robert, the painter, never received any instruction in his art. He is not distinguished in his profession, tho he succeeds tolerably well in obtaining likenesses and has always gained his living by the art. His portraits are badly colored and, sometimes, are laughable caricatures. His price is ten dollars, and his business is almost wholly in the country. I have in some instances seen the name of the person intended to be painted written upon the picture, which was the surest way of identifying it. He is, notwithstanding, a very worthy and devout man.
What is Baldwin talking about? “The name of the person intended to be painted written upon the picture?” I have never seen this, not once in my entire time of hunting and gathering Peckhams so far, and I’ve documented nearly a hundred of them. Not one single painting! I suspect that Baldwin must be referencing or thinking of some other portraitist. One possibility is Royall Brewster Smith (below), known for his inscriptions. But he worked in Maine, not Massachusetts. The anonymous name-writer may be lost to time completely. We’ll probably never know.
I’d also dare to disagree with the "badly colored" and "laughable caricatures" allegations. But it is no surprise that Baldwin would have felt that way: in the AAS's pages on Baldwin's own portrait, we discover that in sharp contrast, he wrote in glowing terms about academic portraitists.
In 1832 Baldwin recorded, 'It was no small gratification to me to have today Chester Harding, Alvan Fisher and Jonathan Mason all with me at once. They are all painters, and they possess such fervent zeal for their profession and everything connected with it, that I have great pleasure to be with them.'
I suppose it is inevitable, then, that he would look down on naive painters such as Peckham. But it's unfortunate. I wish there was more praise on record from contemporary sources! I suppose, for now, we’ll have to make do with the Whittier correction.
Speaking of that: the Boston Globe of May 1889 mentions the portrait in a Worcester Society of Antiquity exhibit, which solidly confirms Whittier’s whereabouts.
Peckham’s Whittier is first mentioned in the WSA's documents in 1885, presumably its year of acquisition. (Where was it before? No clue.) 1889 may have been its very first public display. That was the same year that “Mr. Alfred S. Roe of Worcester,” as Pickard writes, shared a photo of the painting with Whittier. In fact, that exhibition might’ve been the reason that Whittier finally saw his portrait, painted nearly sixty years before.
In time, the WSA grew and evolved into the Worcester Historical Society, and then Worcester Historical Museum. The Whittier Homestead Trustees acquired the Whittier portrait from them, either by purchase or gift, as the WHM wrote to the New York State Historical Association in 1986 (files courtesy of Fenimore Museum.) That concludes the mystery of its 20th-century provenance.
Ever since Whittier returned to his homestead, that “fresh-faced young man,” as Peckham depicted him, has appeared in numerous books, textbooks, and other publications.
I'd like to think Peckham (and Whittier) would’ve been proud.
(Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism, Laurie Lanzen Harris & Emily B. Tennyson)
(Elements of Literature, Second Course, Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
(Selected Poems, John Greenleaf Whittier)
——
Postscript: this, apparently, is a listing of all of the known Whittier portraits. “Whittier at 21” must be a reference to the lookalike Whittier portrait with shorter hair that I wrote about in Part 1. Hilariously, the wording of this entry, “photograph of a likeness” combined with “Whittier’s official photographer,” accidentally implies that it’s something other than a painting, which seems highly unlikely.
That miniature by John S. Porter can be seen here (McClure’s Magazine, Nov 1895), which also contains the first published reprint of Peckham’s Whittier.
Tune in next time for… probably more Peckham again.
