Description
Stephen Salisbury II is a half-length portrait of a man sitting upright in a scroll-backed, brown-wood side chair. His head and body are turned slightly to the viewer’s right; his eyes look at the viewer. The background is green-gray and varies in shade. In the lower-right corner is a round, gray shadow cast by the sitter’s head, indicating a light source above and to his left. Red drapery extends from the upper left to the sitter’s right shoulder. The curving brushstrokes in the drapery echo the curve of that shoulder and arm, which are slung over the back of the chair.

Stephen Salisbury’s tousled, light-brown hair recedes at the temples. His face, which wears an unsmiling expression, is dominated by a high, broad forehead. There are shadows beneath his gray-green eyes. His coat is black, with two black buttons visible on the right side of the lapel. The other buttons are fastened. The high collar of his white shirt covers his neck and part of his chin. The palette is chiefly made up of black, white, and red, complemented by the shades of green-gray and brown noted above.

Biography
Stephen Salisbury II was born in Worcester on March 8, 1798. He was the only child of the prosperous local hardware merchant Stephen Salisbury I (1746–1829) and his wife, Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury (1768–1851), to survive childhood. After attending Centre District School and Leicester Academy, young Stephen went to Harvard College, graduating with honors in 1817. He studied law and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1820. He did not practice, however, "finding his fully sufficient business in the care of his father’s increasing property."¹

In October 1829, Stephen II began a Grand Tour of Europe; he traveled for three years. On November 9, 1833, soon after returning, he married Rebekah Scott Dean (1812–1843), the daughter of Aaron (1765–1829) and Phyla Walker Dean (1773–1849) of Charlestown, New Hampshire. For the first five years of their marriage, the couple lived in the brick house in Worcester that had been built for Stephen II in 1832. In the summer of 1838, they moved into a new house, on Highland Street, designed by the architect Elias Carter.² Stephen and Rebekah had one son, Stephen Salisbury III, born on March 31, 1835. Rebekah died in July 1843. Seven years later, Stephen married Nancy Hoard Lincoln (d. 1852). After her death, he wed Mary Grosvenor Bangs (d. 1864). Stephen III remained his only child.³

Stephen II was actively involved in the community life of Worcester and the greater Boston area. He was a member of, and held offices in, numerous organizations, including the Worcester Fire Society, the Worcester Agricultural Society, the American Antiquarian Society, the Worcester County Horticultural Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and the Worcester County Bible Society. He served on the boards of trustees of the Leicester Academy, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Cambridge, the State Lunatic Hospital in Worcester, the Worcester Free Public Library, Worcester Bank, the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science, and the Worcester and Nashua Railroad Company. He also was an overseer of Harvard College. In 1875 Harvard conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws degree upon him. Stephen held political offices, too, serving as representative to the General Court (1838–39), Worcester selectman (1839), state senator (1846–47), Worcester alderman (1848), and as U.S. presidential elector (1860 and 1872).⁴

Stephen’s interest in art emerged early. As a Harvard freshman, he asked his father for engravings to decorate his room. On sending them to the young man in Cambridge, the elder Salisbury’s clerk wrote, "I should suppose . . . that you intended to convert your study into a grand museum."⁵ In Italy during his Grand Tour, he commissioned a painting from Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872), to whom he was distantly related.⁶ Morse was then traveling in Italy. (Entitled The Chapel of the Virgin at Subiaco [1830–31], the painting is in the Worcester Art Museum.)⁷ Stephen continued purchasing art after he arrived home from Europe. When the Boston landscape artist Alvin Fisher (1792–1863) spent the summer of 1832 in Worcester, Stephen bought his Cattle by a Mountain Tarn (1832, Worcester Art Museum). In Rome during his second trip to Europe, in 1853, he purchased a neoclassical sculpture, Boy Playing Marbles (Worcester Art Museum), by Thomas Crawford (1813–1857) and commissioned the eminent American sculptor to do a large work, tentatively entitled Extinction of the Indian; it was not completed.⁸ Stephen enjoyed commenting on the art he saw on his travels. On one occasion, he presented a paper at the American Antiquarian Society in conjunction with his gift of a sculpture that was a copy of a work in St. Peter’s in Rome.⁹

Stephen Salisbury II died in Worcester on August 24, 1884, and was buried in the family’s plot in Rural Cemetery. The Massachusetts Spy, the town’s newspaper, published lengthy tributes to him and listed his generous bequests, including $20,000 to the American Antiquarian Society and $10,000 to the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science (today the Worcester Polytechnic Institute).¹⁰ Stephen Salisbury III, who remained a bachelor, inherited his father’s belief in philanthropy; he founded the Worcester Art Museum in 1896. Besides donating land and money, Salisbury gave the museum more than forty-five portraits and miniatures representing four generations of family members. Included among these gifts were Chester Harding’s paired portraits of his father and grandmother.

Analysis
Sitting for one’s portrait was already a well-established family custom by 1823, when Stephen first considered having his likeness painted. It was in January of that year that Chester Harding’s name came to his attention, via his mother’s Boston siblings. The artists had already done portraits of several members of his mother’s family. "I hear Mr Hardy [sic] the painter spoken of with high praise," he wrote his mother, Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, from Boston. "I am almost tempted to sit for my own picture, as I think, I have arrived at the beautiful period of my life and this man takes very good likenesses in a very short time."¹¹ In emphasizing the speed and clarity with which the work should be accomplished, the twenty-four-year-old Stephen may have been recalling how, in 1811, his parents had struggled to get Gilbert Stuart to finish portraits of Elizabeth and of Stephen I’s brother Samuel (1739–1818). Also, regardless of Stuart’s local preeminence as a portraitist, his style put Stephen off. In an 1817 letter to his father, he had criticized "those unseemly blotches which are evident in the best paintings of Stewart [sic] if they are not viewed in a certain direction."¹²

Mrs. Salisbury discouraged her son’s notion. "As to having your portrait painted, I should like it very well, but do not think the winter a favourable season, neither am I of your opinion, that you have arriv’d at the most beautiful period of your life." She added that she was more interested at the moment in finding an artist to copy a pastel portrait of her late father, Edward Tuckerman (1740–1818), that her brother the Unitarian minister Joseph Tuckerman (1778–1840) owned.¹³

In late March 1823, Mrs. Salisbury received an oil copy of the pastel, painted by John Ritto Penniman. Her brothers Henry Harris Tuckerman (1783–1860) and Gustavus Tuckerman (1785–1860) also ordered copies from Penniman. The next month, when Gustavus’s wife, Jane, wrote to Elizabeth to discuss the Penniman oil she and Gustavus had received, she added a note of praise for the portraits of family members Harding had done—perhaps at Stephen’s prompting:

I think you will feel gratified to see the likenesses of my Brother and Sister Henry taken by Harding—I like them much; my husband thinks them excellent, but that Stuart would have made them handsomer pictures—Sister Sophia and Hannah have also had theirs taken but I have not seen them. I wish Stephen would consent to sit for his likeness—do try to persuade him—there is still time before Harding leaves here and his pictures are generally I believe thought very highly of.¹⁴

As Jane implied, Harding was planning an extended visit to Europe. Henry Tuckerman, too, was aware of the artist’s impending departure and was likewise worried that Harding would leave before Stephen had a chance to commission a portrait. In late February he had written his nephew that he was "very desirous you should leave an impression" and thought Harding was ideal for the job:

Suffice it to say—he has already taken upwards of 40 faces & has engaged 40 more—moreover he has arranged to leave this country . . . & says "all his time will be occupied" but I am sure I could squeeze your name into the lists, & all your friends would be gratified if a good likeness of a good young man could be procured. Please then to let me know your determination as soon as may be.¹⁵

However, Stephen did not sit to Harding before the artist sailed for England that August. His uncle guessed why. "You do not say a word about Stephen making a visit to Harding," Henry wrote his sister. "[I]s he indifferent about it, or is it his parents?"¹⁶

Harding was warmly welcomed in Great Britain, found important patrons there, and stayed until 1826. After his return to Boston, he was again much in demand. But it would be several years before Stephen Salisbury II’s thoughts returned to having his portrait painted—or to giving Harding the assignment.

On August 13, 1829, Stephen wrote his mother from Boston that he had "done nothing toward having my portrait taken. Some one told me that [Francis] Alexander is out of town. I have also heard that Hardings pictures though finely executed often give a stiff likeness; but I intend to visit the artists rooms and enquire further."¹⁷

Stephen Salisbury I had died in May, and so his son’s his renewed interest in having himself depicted probably had something to do with the considerable inheritance that he, as the only surviving child, had received.¹⁸ There was another reason why Stephen was in a hurry to commission a portrait: early in October he would be leaving for an extended Grand Tour of Europe, a customary trip for young American gentleman of wealth. A portrait would serve as a remembrance for family and friends during his absence.

Stephen’s new sense of urgency is reflected in his next letter, written the next day:

I am greatly disappointed to find that Mr. Alexander the Painter is absent from town and will be so for 6 weeks. I have therefore no alternative but to employ Mr. Harding who is by some persons considered superior. I think it will be better to remain in [Boston] until the middle of next week to accomplish this. . . . I wish, my Dear Mother, I could ask your advice about remaining to have my picture taken by Mr. Harding; but as I cannot I must do what appears to be best.¹⁹

Mrs. Salisbury had responded to his August 13 note before receiving the second letter. She did not discourage him, as she had in 1823, matter-of-factly commenting that it was up to him to "decide which artist to employ" and adding, "you must do as you think best on the whole."²⁰

Early on August 15, Stephen reported to his mother that he had

spent much time yesterday morning in calling on Mr. Harding but did not see him at last, but have made an arrangement with Uncle Henry to call on him at 10 oclock this morning when I shall ascertain whether he will undertake to finish a picture before Wednesday next when I must return [to Worcester]; for under present circumstances I had rather not be absent when the dedication takes place. If Mr. Harding will not finish my picture at once than I shall [go to Worcester] on Monday or Tuesday.²¹

The dedication he referred to was the following Wednesday’s inauguration of a new meetinghouse for Worcester’s Second Congregational Church. Stephen was a member of the church and, from 1826 to 1828, had served as its treasurer.²² It was important that he attend the ceremony. He could not stay in Boston and miss it. But on the other hand, given his impending departure, he feared losing precious time for the portrait. Later on August 15, Stephen happily wrote Elizabeth that he had solved the logistical problem by arranging for Harding to come to Worcester the week of the dedication and paint the picture there.²³

Undoubtedly, Stephen gave careful consideration to what he would wear for his portrait sitting. His letters demonstrate a fastidious attention to attire.²⁴ Fashion was important to him. "I do not like to keep clothes on hand," he once wrote his mother, "until they are unfashionable before they are worn."²⁵ While arranging for his overseas voyage, Stephen learned that his American garb would not be suitable in Europe and that he should plan on buying clothes abroad.²⁶

Not surprisingly, Stephen’s Uncle Henry was delighted to hear that Harding would be doing his nephew’s portrait. Although it had been six years since he had commissioned Harding to paint his own portrait and that of his wife, Henry’s respect for the artist had increased. As he wrote to Elizabeth:

Harding has the advantage over all his contemporarys in this place (Allston alone excepted), of study & observation in Europe. he has but recently returned & with increased claims upon his countrymen, & but for fashion or caprice; (call it which you will,) would undoubtedly stand foremost in his Profession among his young and presuming rivals. I think much of him, because he is in the first place a self taught artist, and secondly because he is modest, gentlemanly & virtuous; has a wife & a house full of children and dependant alone on his brush. . . . [H]e is I assure you, a very deserving good man.²⁷

On August 19, the day of the meetinghouse dedication, Christopher Columbus Baldwin (1800–1835), librarian of Worcester’s American Antiquarian Society and a family friend, noted in his diary that Harding had come "into town from Boston to take the portraits of Mrs. Salisbury and her son Stephen Salisbury, Esq."²⁸ This is the first indication that Elizabeth, too, would pose for the popular artist. She had not previously shown an interest in having him depict her. However the decision was reached, Harding finished the two portraits quickly, writing Stephen a receipt on August 24 and returning to Boston the next day.²⁹ He left the canvases in Worcester with Mrs. Salisbury and her son. Back in Boston, he arranged for frames to be made, evidently giving the order to John Doggett (1780–1857), a carver and gilder who produced cabinets, looking-glasses, and frames and also sold pictures.³⁰ On September 9, Stephen wrote his mother that he was about to drop by Doggett’s shop.³¹

Stephen sailed for England, the first stop on his Grand Tour, on October 1. Two weeks later, Mrs. Salisbury wrote him that she had determined where to hang the portraits, with help from her brother William.³²

Elizabeth was glad to show the portraits off, noting the reactions of many family members and friends in letters to her son while he was abroad. "The Govr. [Levi Lincoln (1782–1868)] spoke of your Portrait, & express’d a wish to see it," she wrote in January 1830. "[H]e admir’d it much did not mention a single fault. did not like mine—every body says, it is not like me.³³ And in April, she mentioned two eligible young women who had paid calls: "Miss C. Thomas . . . had not seen your Portrait before, could not sufficiently admire the likeness—never saw one so good. miss’d you very much. hop’d you would go to see her when you return’d. Miss More was here too. she was much pleas’d with your Portrait. She desir’d to be remember’d to you & so did Miss T."³⁴

Figure 1. Chester Harding, Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury (Mrs. Stephen Salisbury I), 1829, oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm), Worcester Art Museum, Bequest of Stephen Salisbury III, 1907.32.

Although companion portraits of husbands and wives, or of siblings, were far more common than those of mothers and sons, there was a direct family precedent for such a pairing: Christian Gullager had painted the widowed Martha Saunders Salisbury (Mrs. Nicholas Salisbury) and her unmarried son, Stephen Salisbury I, in 1789. Perhaps the thought of maintaining this kind of continuity prompted Elizabeth to sit to Harding in tandem with her sole surviving offspring. She possibly also viewed a mother-and-son portrait pair as an ideal means of underscoring Stephen II’s responsibility to her now that her husband was gone. She never hesitated to remind him of his duties in her numerous letters to him while he was abroad. "[T]hese money concerns," she complained in October 1830, "I wish you would come home & take care of them—they are very burdensome to me."³⁵ Mrs. Salisbury knew that Stephen would probably marry someday but wanted him close at hand for as long as possible. "I would tell you what would please me," she wrote, "it is that you would be married, and live with me, till you could at your leisure build & furnish such a house as you would like."³⁶

Although Harding painted Stephen Salisbury II and Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury (Mrs. Stephen Salisbury I) (fig. 1) in Worcester, they are formal, studiolike images, their tone echoing that of most of the artist’s works. The column and drapery in the paintings are conventional features of English Grand Manner portraiture.³⁷ Likewise, the Empire-style side chair seen in Stephen’s likeness appears in a number of Harding’s portraits of men; Stephen was known to own a similar chair.³⁸

Both Harding and Salisbury were advocates of the popular nineteenth-century pseudoscience of phrenology, which was rooted in the belief that a person’s character could be discerned by studying the shape of his or her skull. As Christopher Columbus Baldwin noted in his diary two years after the Salisbury portraits were painted, Harding was "a full believer and convert to the doctrine."³⁹ The larger the head, Harding believed, the greater the talent and intelligence.⁴⁰ Stephen Salisbury II reflects phrenology’s influence. The forehead is broad and prominent, and Harding directed the light source from above the sitter so that the head casts a large, oval shadow into the lower-right corner of the image. Five years after the portrait was painted, Stephen and fourteen other men gathered at Bonney’s public house in Worcester to form a local phrenological society; they planned to meet monthly "to investigate the Science of Phrenology and ascertain its nature and the foundation there may be for it in truth." Stephen was elected vice-president.⁴¹

Although Harding and Salisbury shared that philosophical belief—and although Stephen had no complaints about his portrait—the artist would not have agreed with his sitter’s general philosophy about portraits. "[I]f my portrait were to be taken," Stephen wrote to Samuel F. B. Morse from London in 1831, "I should desire that in preserving the likeness the beautification should not be neglected for who knows but I might at some other time look more beautiful than at the moment the picture is taken."⁴² Harding, on the other hand, typically foreswore flattery, taking a straightforward approach to nearly all of his American sitters. This trait is clearly evident, for example, in President James Madison, which he painted in Richmond two months after completing the Salisbury portraits. Harding rendered Madison, then nearing eighty, replete with his wrinkles, sagging skin, moles, and tired eyes.

Figure 2. Unidentified artist, Stephen Salisbury II, about 1825, watercolor on ivory, 2 1/2 x 2 1/16 in. (6.4 x 5.2 cm), Worcester Art Museum, Gift of Stephen Salisbury III, 1901.48.

Notes
1. Memorial of Stephen Salisbury 1885, 98, opp. 158.

2. Baldwin Diary, 246; Sawyer and Dresser 1946, 79. Stephen Salisbury II’s 1838 house is today the office of the Central Massachusetts Chapter of the American Red Cross.

3. Salisbury 1885, I, 35.

4. Memorial of Stephen Salisbury 1885, 59, 68, 70, 103, opp. 158.

5. Horatio G. Henshaw, Worcester, to Stephen Salisbury II, Cambridge, October 26, 1813, Salisbury Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts (hereafter cited as SFP, AAS), box 15, folder 8.

6. Dresser 1941. Stephen also hired Morse to copy a work by the Spanish Old Master Bartolmé Esteban Murillo (1617/18–1682). See Samuel F. B. Morse, New York, to Henry C. Pratt, Boston, March 26, 1833, Miscellaneous Bound, Massachusetts Historical Society (hereafter cited as MHS), Boston.

7. Baldwin Diary, 201.

8. Hennessey 1972, 3, 5.

9. Salisbury 1862.

10. Massachusetts Spy, August 29, 1884, and September 5, 1884. For Stephen Salisbury II’s will, see Worcester County Probate, ser. B, case no. 3541.

11. Stephen Salisbury II, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, January 13, 1823, SFP, AAS, box 21, folder 1.

12. Stephen Salisbury II, Cambridge, to Stephen Salisbury I, Worcester, May 5, 1817, SFP, AAS, box 17, folder 5.

13. Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, to Stephen Salisbury II, Boston, January 14, 1823, SFP, AAS, box 21, folder 1.

14. Jane Francis Tuckerman, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, April 10, 1823, SFP, AAS, box 21, folder 1. Harding’s portraits Henry Harris Tuckerman, Ruth Keating Tuckerman, Hannah Tuckerman and Sophia May Tuckerman have not been located. Lipton 1985, 183.

15. Henry Harris Tuckerman, Boston, to Stephen Salisbury II, Boston, February 6, 1823, SFP, AAS, box 21, folder 1.

16. Henry Harris Tuckerman, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, February 12, 1823, SFP, AAS, box 21, folder 1.

17. Stephen Salisbury II, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, August 13, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 4. Stephen later sat for Alexander as well (n.d., unlocated). For a record of the Alexander portrait, see Frick Art Reference Library, photograph mount no. 21629.

18. On May 11, the day the elder Salisbury died, the librarian of Worcester’s American Antiquarian Society, Christopher Columbus Baldwin, wrote in his diary: "He is reputed the richest man in the county or that has been in it—$500,000 at least and many suppose much more." Baldwin Diary, 21. Salisbury 1885, I, 35; Gustavus Tuckerman, Boston, to James Perry, Bristol, September 29, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 5, AAS. This is a letter of introduction, written by his uncle on Stephen’s behalf, in which the inheritance is documented. See also Indenture of Settlement of the Estate of Stephen Salisbury I, June 18, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 3.

19. Stephen Salisbury II, Boston to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, August 14, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 4.

20. Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, to Stephen Salisbury, II, Boston, August 14, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 4.

21. Stephen Salisbury II, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, August [15], 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 4.

22. Susan M. Anderson, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, to Laura K. Mills, September 24, 1998.

23. "Mr. Hard . . . will go to Worcester on Monday and attend to me there." Stephen Salisbury, II, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, August [15], 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 4.

24. For example, early in 1823 Stephen ordered a cloak in Boston and wrote his mother that he had "given very particular directions respecting the making of it. It is a blue silk Camblet with a purple shade." Stephen Salisbury II, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, January 11, 1823, SFP, AAS, box 21, folder 1.

25. Stephen Salisbury II, Worcester, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Boston, June 25, 1822, SFP, AAS box 20, folder 8.

26. Stephen Salisbury II to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, August 14, 1829.

27. Henry Harris Tuckerman, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, August 16, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 4.

28. Baldwin Diary, 31.

29. The artist charged $200 dollars for the pair and an additional $31.50 for a pair of frames. Chester Harding receipt to Stephen Salisbury II, August 24, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 55, folder 3, AAS. It appears that Harding’s 1829 price for a half-length portrait was the same as what Stuart was charging for bust portraits at the end of his career. According to Stephen Salisbury II’s records, Stuart’s 1823 portrait of his father, Stephen Salisbury I, cost $100. "Memoranda of Portraits," SFP, AAS, Octavo vol. 62, p. 37. Baldwin Diary, 32.

30. Doggett 1894, 437, 439; Swan, 1929. See also John Doggett Records, Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection, Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, Delaware.

31. "I called at Mr. Hardings and find that he is about on a journey to the coast. I am now going to Doggetts." Stephen Salisbury II, Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, September 9, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 5. Probably, Stephen was not going there to collect the finished frames but simply to check on the order. It is certain he did not have the portraits with him in Boston because, that same day, his mother wrote to him about having shown them to her nieces. Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, to Stephen Salisbury II, Boston, September 9, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 5.

32. "I have had them put up and they look well as they are plac’d. bro William told me how to place them." Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, to Stephen Salisbury II, October 14, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 6. Perhaps William also assisted his sister by arranging for the completed frames to be delivered from Boston, but he does not appear to have been in Worcester on October 3, when they were hung. Thomas Eaton appears to have done the actual hanging for her. See Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury’s account with Thomas B. Eaton, October 3, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 55, folder 3. For Stephen’s departure, see Edward Tuckerman, Jr., Boston, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, September 30–October 1, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 5.

33. Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, to Stephen Salisbury II, January 1–11, 1830, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 8. For more on Elizabeth’s dissatisfaction with her portrait, see the entry Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury (Mrs. Stephen Salisbury I).

34. Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, to Stephen Salisbury II, April 6, 1830, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 9.

35. Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury to Stephen Salisbury II, October 25, 1830, SFP, AAS, box 24, folder 3.

36. Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, to Stephen Salisbury II, May 11, 1830, SFP, AAS, box 24, folder 1.

37. The column on the left side of Elizabeth’s portrait is found in other Harding portrait pairs. See, for instance, William Lorman and Mrs. William Lorman (about 1828, both Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia) and Edward Hutchinson Robbins and Mrs. Edward Hutchinson Robbins (1827, both Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). The first Harding portrait to include a column is Alexander Hamilton Douglas, 10th Duke of Hamilton, painted in Scotland in 1825 (private collection).

38. Harding had used the arm-slung-over-the-chair pose seen here in an early portrait, John Ames (1823, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts), and would do so again in John Randolph of Roanoke (1829, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.); Thomas Gray (1830, Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts); and Russel Freeman (1830, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York). For the chair, see Meyer 1986, 20. The armchair, rather than the side chair, is reproduced.

39. Baldwin Diary, 97. Colbert suggested that Harding’s interest in phrenology led him to expand the proportions of his sitters’ heads (1997, 155).

40. Sophia Peabody diary, July 22, 1830, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

41. Baldwin Diary, 302. No other reference for this group has been found. Two years earlier, Johan Gaspar Spurzheim (1776–1832), a leading proponent of phrenology, had passed through Worcester on his way to deliver lectures on the topic in Boston and Cambridge. Baldwin Diary, 199.

42. Stephen Salisbury II, London, to Samuel F. B. Morse, London, October 11, 1831, SFP, AAS, box 25, folder 2.

43. Stephen wrote: "I shall also put into the Package a Profile of myself which I was so foolish to have taken by an artist, who, by his advertisement promised to furnish Picture & Frame for one shilling. But this as it is done in superior style costs 10/5 of our money." Stephen Salisbury II, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, October 30, 1829, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 6.

44. Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury to Stephen Salisbury II, January 1–11, 1830.

45. Stephen Salisbury II, Rome, to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, Worcester, April 1, 1830, SFP, AAS, box 23, folder 9.

46. For the Alexander portrait, see note 17 above. The Goodridge miniature was painted in about 1832 (Worcester Art Museum). The Huntington portrait was commissioned by the American Antiquarian Society in 1878; it remains in that institution’s collection. Billings painted two portraits of Stephen II, one in 1885 (Worcester Art Museum) and the other in about 1886 (Worcester County Horticultural Society, Boylston, Massachusetts).

47. Stephen Salisbury II, Worcester, to Edward Elbridge Salisbury, New Haven, September 10, 1881, Salisbury Family Papers, Yale Manuscripts and Archives, ser. I, box 3, folder 179; Edward L. Custer obituary, Boston Evening Transcript, January 10, 1881.