WILLIAM THOMPSON BARTOLL (American 1817-1859). Portrait Mary Farra, age 19 months, 1838. Oil on panel. 20 x 17-1/2 inche...

Description

WILLIAM THOMPSON BARTOLL (American 1817-1859)
Portrait Mary Farra, age 19 months, 1838
Oil on panel
20 x 17-1/2 inches (50.8 x 44.5 cm)
Signed lower left: W.T. BARTOLL
Inscribed lower right: Aged 19 months/1838

Mary Farra, the subject of this portrait, was the daughter of Lt. Farra of the Frigate Essex, War of 1812. An old label on verso indicates the painting was produced in Marblehead, Massachusetts. According to this label the painting came from a private family in Marblehead who were descendants of Mary B. Farra, the sitter. Bartoll produced another nearly identical portrait of Mary Ferra, although unlike the present work it was unsigned. It sold through Sotheby's, New York on January 27, 1990 for $26,400.

William Thompson Bartoll was the son of John and Rebecca Bartoll and was baptized in Marblehead, Massachusetts on June 22, 1817. He married Sally L. Selman in April of 1835. Bartoll, like his father, uncle and brother, was a house painter, as well as a portraitist and mural painter. He is known to have exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum between 1841 and 1855 and he died in 1859 in Marblehead. (For further information see George C. Croce and David H. Wallace, The New-York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America 1564-1860, New Haven, 1957, p. 34).

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