ملف:Portrait of Captain Jabez Huntington (1767-1848) (by Ralph Earl).jpg

English: Ralph Earl (1751-1801)

Portrait of Captain Jabez Huntington (1767-1848)

signed R. Earl Pinxt./ 1796 (lower left)

oil on canvas

48 x 36 in.

reverse of stretcher with hand-written inscription 567/Warner and a label hand-inscribed in ink 567/Warner

Combining American simplicity and technical virtuosity inspired by English portraitists, this portrait of Jabez Huntington (1767-1848) masterfully conveys the talents of Ralph Earl (1751-1801). Here, the modelling of the face, the sitter’s casual yet confident pose and unencumbered background reference skills and tools Earl learned during his years in London and Norwich, England during the late 1770s and early 1780s. However, the hard-edged realism of the clothing embodies a directness favored by Earl’s clientele in Connecticut during the 1790s. The portrait is one of Earl’s finest of a male subject, in part due to its pristine condition. Lacking any abrasion and only one small area of in-paint to the background, the work has been noted to survive “in extraordinarily good condition” (Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc., Condition Report, Ralph Earl, Captain Jabez Huntington, 2 November 2021). Portraying Huntington in full Continental Army uniform, this portrait departs from the majority of Earl’s New England works. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser notes in her 1991 study that it was unusual for Earl to exalt a sitter’s military life and most of his male subjects, even those with military honors, are depicted in civilian attire. However, the same uniform is seen in Earl’s portrait of Captain John Pratt and comprised a blue jacket with red trim. These colors were established during the Revolutionary War and as seen in this excerpt from the 1798 order of Joseph Williams, Brigadier General of the Connecticut milita, were upheld years later:

...the Captain General anxious for the health & comfort of the Troops & feeling a degree of Military Pride for their manly & soldierly appearance in the field, seriously recommends that the militia be clothed in blue cloth coats faced with red, lined with white and trimmed with white buttons–the under dress to be white with white buttons (cited by Barbara Austen, “Blue cloth coats with red facings and white lining,” 2 July 2014, available at chs.org).

Additional military accoutrements include the black neck cloths, red sashes and epaulettes (Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, catalogue entry, and Aileen Ribeiro, costume notes, Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic (Wadsworth Atheneum, 1991), pp. 186-187, cat. 43). To complete the ensemble, Huntington holds a tricorn hat with a black-silk cockade in his left hand and a highly polished silver-hilted sword in his right. The hat bears a dark green feather, the designated color for aids-de-camp to bridadiers and major-generals (Arthur S. Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men: Alexander Hamilton and Tench Tilghman and the Aides-de-Camp Who Helped Win American Independence (Mechanicsburg, PA, 2002), p. 52). The documentary record notes that Huntington was made an aid-de-camp in 1798 by Governor Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., but this portrait suggests that Huntington held the rank at least two years earlier (Litchfield Monitor, 15 August 1798, p. 4). In 1799, Huntington was promoted to the rank of Major (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 February 1799, p. 3).

Jabez Huntington hailed from one of Connecticut’s most important eighteenth-century families. His grandfather of the same name (1719-1786) and his father, Jedidiah Huntington (1743-1818), were successful merchants and served as Major General and Brigadier General respectively during the Revolutionary War. His mother, Faith Trumbull (1743-1775), was the daughter of Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785) and at about the age of 10, young Jabez was painted by his uncle, the renowned artist John Trumbull (1756-1843) (see Yale University Art Gallery, acc. no. 1938.272). In 1796, Earl painted this portrait of Jabez along with a companion portrait of his wife, Mary Lanman (1773-1809) with their son, Jedidiah Huntington (1794-1870), now in a private collection. During this year, Earl is known to have been working in western Connecticut in New Milford and Sharon, where along with the Huntington pair, he executed some of his most acclaimed portraits, including those of Mr. and Mrs. Jared Lane, Judge and Mrs. Judson Canfield and Mrs. Elijah Boardman and Son as well as pioneering examples of American landscape painting (Kornhauser, pp. 202 -213, cats. 51-55). The Huntingtons lived in Norwich, Connecticut, where Earl painted two years later, and it is not known where this commission took place. As a member of the state’s elite, Huntington had numerous familial, professional and political ties to many of Earl’s sitters who may have provided a conduit between artist and sitter. Also, Earl was a noted friend of Dr. Joseph Trumbull (1756-1824), a second cousin of the artist, and the Trumbull family may also have played a role in facilitating the commission (for Joseph Trumbull, see Kornhauser, pp. 131-132, cat. 18).

This portrait and its companion were owned by Mr. and Mrs. Carleton J. Phillips in 1967, when both were exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Their previous history is unknown, but the presence of 567/Warner inscribed and labelled on the back of the stretchers of this portrait suggest that they may have descended in the family to the early 20th century. The sitter’s great-great granddaughter, Marguerite Esther Claflin (1891-1931) married Harold Ellsworth Warner (1888-1958) in 1916 and the inscriptions may indicate his ownership after her early death, or possibly that of one of their three sons. Soon after the Detroit exhibition, both portraits were acquired by Hirschl & Adler, and the portrait of Mrs. Jabez Huntington was later sold by Nathan Liverant & Son.