Description
Elisabeth Bender Greenough (Mrs. David Greenough) is a bust-length portrait of a seated woman facing three-quarters right. Her dark brown hair is twisted and fastened into a bun on the top of her head. Several strands of loose curls fall on her forehead and along the sides of her face, but they do not hide her ear, with its prominent lobe. Wisps of hair too short to be tucked into the bun hang down the back of her neck. The hair was finished with strokes of dark brown paint added wet-on-dry, and the creamy flesh of her pale forehead was applied around the hair.

The sitter has light brown eyes with white highlights to the left of each pupil and a longer, thin, white highlight underneath the proper right eye. In both eyes the top half of the iris is outlined in black paint, and fine, curved stokes of darker brown paint are visible in each iris. Small, sketchy brushstrokes are below the right corner of the proper left eye. Two curls of hair almost completely cover the proper right eyebrow. Her arched proper left brow is very sketchily painted, and the area below the brow and above her eyelid is gray. In this area and other parts of her face and neck, the gray ground layer shows through, suggesting that the flesh tones were thinly painted. A flesh-colored highlight on her nose was more thickly painted. Her cheeks, chin, and lips are pink. For the lips, the color was loosely applied in several short strokes and not blended, but a white opaque highlight on the left side of her lower lip suggests they were finished. Brown shadows are evident to the right of her nose, beneath the tip, and underneath her lower lip, suggesting a light source in the upper left. The contour of her chin is reinforced with brown.

Greenough wears a high-waisted black dress with a low scooped neckline. Short strokes of flesh-colored paint are visible on her neck and chest, but in some places the flesh color does not hide the gray ground. The contours of the black dress are roughly painted over the red chair and the drapery. The folds and highlights of the dress are indicated with darker black and lighter gray paint. Loose strokes of opaque white and gray paint barely suggest the ruffles on her shift, which are visible along the neckline of the dress. The sleeves of her dress appear to be in two layers, with a top sleeve that ends in triangular-shaped cuts.

Only the blond wood of the back of the chair is visible, along with some of the red upholstery. Behind the sitter is a red curtain, which covers most of the background except for the chair on the left side of the composition and a small expanse of sky in the lower right corner. The curtain was painted with visible brushwork. The chair is a deeper red than the curtain. The blue sky includes a white cloud painted with thick, loose strokes above a more swirly gray-green area that represents either darker clouds or tree leaves.

	Figure 1. Infrared reflectogram of a man's head on the back of the panel of Gilbert Stuart, Elisabeth Bender Greenough (Mrs. David Greenough).

Biography
Elisabeth "Betsey" Bender was born on September 10, 1776. She was the fifth of nine children born to Peter Bender (1745–1832) and his first wife, Abigail Brigham (1745–1805), of Marlborough, Massachusetts.¹ Elisabeth's father was the son of German immigrants who settled in Boston in 1750. He was a merchant prior to his arrival in 1764 to Marlborough, where he became a carpenter.²

On October 21, 1799, in Marlborough, Elisabeth Bender married David Greenough (1774–1836), of Boston.³ David Greenough was the fourth of seven children born in Welfleet, Massachusetts, to John Greenough (1742–1781) and Mehitable Dillingham (1747–1798).⁴ John Greenough, a Yale graduate, taught school and operated a store in Welfleet, where his political sympathies were questioned during the Revolution after he admitted to selling tea. In 1781 Greenough moved his family to Boston, where he died in July of that year, when David Greenough was only seven.⁵ David Stoddard Greenough (1752–1826), his father's half brother became the guardian of David Greenough and his siblings, although their mother was still alive.⁶

David Greenough became a builder and a real estate developer in Boston.⁷ Between 1810 and 1814, he built two houses on Colonnade Row, designed by the architect Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844), and in 1818 he was involved in the erection of a block of buildings with stone facades on Brattle Street.⁸ His transactions were noted frequently in the Boston records. For instance, in exchange for the purchase of part of a lot on West Street owned by the school house in 1814, Greenough was asked to build a new school house to replace the old one.⁹ On another occasion, Greenough was the leader of a petition to build a new market house near Dock Square. The petition was rejected in 1819 because "the rights and interests of the Town would be injuriously affected by the erection of any new Market in the vicinity of the old Market near Faneuil Hall by any individual citizens and for their private benefit.¹⁰ In addition to real estate, it appears that Greenough invested in ship building and in a cotton mill in Clinton.¹¹

Elisabeth and David Greenough had eleven children. The eldest daughter, Mehitable, died in infancy in October 1801, and the third child, Laura Ann, died at thirteen.¹² They were the parents of the renowned sculptors Horatio Greenough (1805–1852), their fourth child, and Richard Saltonstall Greenough (1819–1904), their youngest. Their fifth child, Henry Greenough (1807–1883), was best known for his work as an architect, and their oldest son John Greenough (1801–1852) was a portrait and landscape painter. Although Elisabeth's daughter-in-law Francis Boott Greenough stated that Elisabeth had "neither knowledge nor appreciation of art," her sons wrote to her about art, and she was proud of their accomplishments.¹³ For instance, after Horatio Greenough's commission for James Fenimore Cooper, Chanting Cherubs (1828, unlocated), arrived in Boston in May 1831, Elisabeth wrote to her son Henry in Florence, "Alfred no doubt has informed you how the Cherubs have been received; has he told you how much your mother admires them? Congratulate Horatio on his flattering prospects." Her letter also reported Washington Allston's comments to her in praise of the sculpture.¹⁴

The Greenoughs moved frequently. In 1805 they resided at Green Street, and from about 1810 to 1819 they lived in the houses that David Greenough had built at Colonnade Row. In 1819 they moved to Jamaica Plain, where David Stoddard Greenough, Jr. (1787–1830), noted their social visits and business dealings in his diary.¹⁵ They moved back to Colonnade Row about 1824 and later moved to Chestnut Street and Beacon Street.¹⁶

Elisabeth's granddaughter Laura Huntington Wagnière (b. 1849) described her grandmother as "a great lover of Nature, flowers, birds, and books.¹⁷ Her daughter-in-law Frances, however, indicated that Elisabeth "always tended to look on the dark side" and was "with the best intentions . . . subject to jealousies and suspicions," which made her "a thorn to herself, and those about her.¹⁸

Elisabeth wrote poetry throughout her life, and near its close she had a small collection of her poems dating from 1798 until 1864 privately printed and published under the title Occasional Verses.¹⁹ She wrote "To Little Hetty" after the death of her first child in 1801 and "To Laura in Heaven" after her thirteen-year-old daughter died in 1816.²⁰ In an untitled poem also lamenting the loss of her daughter, she announced that she would change the name of another daughter to Laura Ann so that, "when I hear her sisters call / That dear and well-known name / The sweet delusion I'll embrace / and think it is the same.²¹ Still mourning Laura's death two years later, she wrote "On Seeing Children on the Common" and "On Hearing my Bird Sing in Winter.²² Finding a measure of comfort in her spiritual beliefs, in 1838 she instructed the transcendentalists to "boast not of superior light, nor of some new-born sense" in her five-stanza poem "Transcendentalism."²³ Some of her later poems reflect her thoughts on her own mortality and her faith in God. "On Seeing a Leaf Fall in Autumn" was dated two years before her death. In the final stanza she wrote, "Then hushed be every anxious thought, / Though we like vegetation die, / And this frail body turns to nought, / the Spirit soars to God on high.²⁴

Elisabeth's husband, David, died in Boston on July 27, 1836.²⁵ A probate inventory revealed his real estate holdings totaled $149,000 and his personal estate $10,017.50, but his estate was heavily mortgaged.²⁶ By 1845 Elisabeth had moved to Cambridge, where she remained in her son Henry's house while he and his family spent five years in Europe.²⁷

Elisabeth Bender Greenough died on January 11, 1866, at age ninety. Her obituary appeared the following week in the Boston Daily Evening Transcript."²⁸ She was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, where here husband had been interred. A large marble monument contains the inscription "Elisabeth/wife of/David Greenough/Born Sept. 10th 1776/Died Jan. 11th 1866/Loved and Honoured.²⁹

Analysis
Elisabeth Bender Greenough (Mrs. David Greenough) was painted on panel in the artist's bust-length format, which was very popular with his Boston patrons, but the portrait appears to have been cut down. For his bust portraits, Stuart positioned the sitter in front of either a neutral-colored wall or added grand manner elements to the background, like the red curtain and the bit of cloud-filled blue sky in Greenough's portrait. Elisabeth Bender Greenough (Mrs. David Greenough), however, is somewhat smaller than Stuart's other bust portraits, which were typically head-and-shoulder views of the sitter from above the elbows, as in the portrait Ann Frazier King (Mrs. William King) (about 1806, Maine State House Portrait Collection, Augusta). Greenough's portrait ends rather abruptly just below the bustline of her high-waisted black dress. On the back of the panel, there are drip marks on the top edge that descend from the presentation surface, but no drips mark the other edges, which suggests that the side and bottom edges may have been trimmed.

Stuart started a portrait of an unidentified man on the reverse of the panel of Elisabeth Bender Greenough (Mrs. David Greenough) and left it unfinished (fig. 1). Underneath the layer of dull yellow paint, infrared vidicon revealed the sitter's head turned to the viewer's left. Although the top of his head is bald, there is hair on the sides. His eyes, nose, and lips were roughly defined before the portrait was discarded and covered with yellow. It was not unusual for Stuart to leave a portrait unfinished. In some instances, Stuart's unfinished portraits were even completed by other artists.³⁰ The 1828 inventory of Stuart's estate listed "8 unfinished sketches of Heads" in the front chamber of his house, including Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton (Mrs. Perez Morton).³¹ The hidden portrait sketch on the reverse of Elisabeth Bender Greenough (Mrs. David Greenough) demonstrates that at least one of Stuart's unfinished portraits was recycled and used for a new commission.

The circumstances of the commission of Greenough's portrait are not known, but Stuart was certainly a familiar name to the Greenoughs. In 1825, when Horatio Greenough was a senior at Harvard, he entered a public competition to design the Bunker Hill Monument. Stuart was chairman of the Board of Artists and approved Greenough's model for an obelisk, although it was not his version that was eventually constructed.³² In his memorial tribute to Horatio Greenough, the author and critic Henry Tuckerman suggested that "Stuart's masterpieces" were an influence on the young sculptor.³³ Horatio Greenough's acquaintance with the artist is documented in an 1828 letter to Samuel Morse, in which he predicted, just a few months before Stuart's death, that "Mr. Stuart I fear is going-"³⁴

	Figure 2. Gilbert Stuart, Elisabeth Bender Greenough (Mrs. David Greenough), about 1805, oil on panel, 28 x 23 1/4 in. (71.1 x 59.0 cm), Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ellerton M. Jetté.		Figure 3. Gilbert Stuart, David Greenough, about 1805, oil on panel, 29 x 23 1/2 in. (73.7 x 59.7 cm), Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ellerton M. Jetté.

Besides the difference in Elisabeth's age in the Worcester and Colby portraits, an analysis of her costume suggests that the Worcester portrait was painted after the Colby portrait. Though the bodice of the white dress in the Colby portrait is largely covered with a gold patterned shawl, its square neckline appears to date from about 1805. The trim on the sleeve of the black dress in the Worcester portrait dates from about 1820. Moreover, the black dress does not have small armholes, which were characteristic of dresses from about 1810.³⁵

Although there has been some confusion about the identification of the sitters in Stuart's Colby portraits, they are undoubtedly portraits of Elisabeth Bender Greenough and David Greenough. The portraits were first published in 1920 by the art historian Mantle Fielding, who did not include the identity of the sitters but listed the owner as "Mrs. Wm. Payne Thompson [Edith Blight, of Philadelphia] of ‘Longfields,' Westbury, Long Island."³⁶ Six years later Lawrence Park illustrated the pair in his catalogue of Stuart's works but identified the sitters as David Stoddard Greenough, Jr. (1787–1830), the son of David Greenough's father's half brother, and his wife, Maria Foster Doane Greenough (1793–1843). Park also wrote that both portraits were owned by a great-granddaughter of the sitters, Edith Blight Thompson (1874–1941), the same owner recorded by Fielding, who inherited them from her grandfather, Richard S. Greenough.³⁷ Thompson was the great-granddaughter of David and Elisabeth Bender Greenough through their son Richard Saltonstall Greenough (1819–1904) and not the great-granddaughter of David Stoddard Greenough, Jr., and his wife, Maria Foster Doane.³⁸ Further evidence of Park's error in identifying the sitters can be found in From Dawn to Dusk, a book published in Vevey, Switzerland, about 1929 by Laura Curtis Wagnière, a granddaughter of Elisabeth and David Greenough. She wrote, "My grandfather had no artistic tendencies but was, I fancy, a practical intelligent man, rather English in appearance with fair hair judging from a portrait by Stuart, whereas my Grandmother's, the pendant of his, was that of a handsome woman with dark hair, dark eyes and a great contrast to her husband's colouring."³⁹

It is worth noting that the David Stoddard Greenough, Jrs., who Park identified as the sitters in the Colby portraits, were considerably younger than their half first cousins, the David Greenoughs, and that they did not marry until 1813. David Greenough was thirteen years older than David Stoddard Greenough, Jr., and Elisabeth Bender Greenough was seventeen years older than Maria Doane Greenough.

The Colby companion portraits of Elisabeth (fig. 2) and David Greenough (fig. 3) next came into the possession of Edith Blight Thompson's niece Edith Alice Cecilia Lowther (Madame Roger de Vilmorin) (b. 1906), who sold the portraits through Christie's in London in October 1961 as Portrait of David Greenough and Portrait of His Wife, Elizabeth Bender.⁴⁰ The portraits were purchased by John Mitchell and Son, of New Bond Street, London, and then immediately sold to Child's Gallery in Boston, which reverted the titles back to those used by Park.⁴¹ The portraits were purchased from Child's Gallery by Ellerton Jetté about 1962 and loaned the following year to the Colby College Museum of Art until 1982, when they entered the collection as gifts from Mr. and Mrs. Ellerton M. Jetté. In 1976 descendants of David and Elisabeth Bender Greenough contacted Colby about correcting the titles of the portraits, which was done.⁴²

Other family portraits, besides the Worcester portrait of Elisabeth Bender Greenough, support the current identification of the sitters of the Colby pendants.⁴³ A photograph of Chester Harding's portrait David Stoddard Greenough, Jr. (unlocated) reveals a different person than the man represented in the Colby portrait, a departure one descendant felt was "again some excellent proof that the Vilmorin portrait is not of David Stoddard Greenough 2nd but is of David Greenough."⁴⁴

Notes
1. Brigham 1907, 124–25, and Hudson 1862, 42.

2. Peter Bender was the son of Jacob and Abigail Bender, of Eschelbach, Baden, Germany. Jacob Bender's funeral was held at Trinity Church in Boston on June 29, 1783, and Abigail Bender's on March 2, 1800. See Oliver and Peabody 1982, 796, 815; Marsh and Parker 1902, 64; and Wright 1963, 21.

3. Marlborough Vital Records 1908, 22.

4. Marsh and Parker 1902, 63–65.

5. Greenough 1969, 35–36, and Lawrence VI, n.d., 121–22.

6. Greenough 1969, 36.

7. David Greenough's son Alfred wrote to his brother Henry about his father's success as a builder and real estate dealer in August 1830. Quoted in Greenough 1887, 68.

8. See ibid., 14; Greenough 1969, 37; and Brown 1947, 67–69.

9. Boston Town Records 1908, 114–15.

10. Boston Town Records 1906, 95–96, 127–28.

11. The ship built by Caleb Turner in 1815 was jointly owned by Greenough, Samuel Parkman, Jr., and Alden Briggs, but it was called the Laura Ann in honor of David and Elisabeth Greenough's daughter. See Briggs 1975, 193, and Ford 1896, 151–53.

12. Lawrence IV, n.d., 122–23.

13. Greenough 1887, 14. Elizabeth's son Henry wrote to her from Europe in May 1848 to inform her that he had sent her two copies of an engraving and a portrait of himself. Henry Greenough to Elisabeth Bender Greenough, Cambridge, May 21, 1848, Greenough Family Letters, Archives of American Art, microfilm reel 1215.

14. Elizabeth Greenough to Henry Greenough, quoted in Greenough 1887, 70–71.

15. See, for instance, diary of David Stoddard Greenough II, box 41, vol. 70, 213–16, 222, 228–30, 233–34, 253, 272 in David Stoddard Greenough Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Mass.

16. Wright 1963, 21–22. Elisabeth recorded her address as Beacon Street in her poems from 1838 and 1839 published in Occasional Verses. Greenough n.d., 12–14.

17. Wagniere-Huntington [1929?], 13.

18. Frances B. Greenough to Harriet B. Loring, January 10, 1846, in the collection of David Richardson, Washington, D.C., quoted in Wright 1963, 21.

19. There are several copies of Occasional Verses at the Boston Public Library, in the Research Collection and in Rare Books.

20. Greenough n.d., 4–5.

21. Ibid., 8–9.

22. Ibid., 6–7, 10–11.

23. Ibid., 13.

24. Ibid., 17.

25. Columbian Centinel (Boston), August 3, 1836. His death date was recorded on his tomb in lot number 2525 on Mistletoe Path in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass. Horatio Greenough had received news of his father's illness in Florence in March 1836. See Greenough 1887, 110.

26. Inventory of the estate of David Greenough, Suffolk County no. 31307. According to David Greenough's daughter-in-law Frances, "At one time he owned the greater part of Brattle Street, the Province House estate, and parts of Chestnut, Summer, and other streets . . . encouraged by these flattering prospects, he extended his business too far, and on the eve of insuring wealth met with an untoward reverse. He died at the age of sixty-two years, leaving his estate, heavily mortgaged, to the care of his son Henry, who gradually redeemed it from and apparently hopeless condition." Greenough 1887, 14. See also Wright 1963, 111.

27. Henry Greenough to Elisabeth Bender Greenough, Cambridge, May 21, 1848, Greenough Family Letters, microfilm reel 1215. See also Lawrence VI, n.d., 124; Florence Boott Greenough to Elisabeth Bender Greenough, Cambridge, December 2, 1845, Greenough Family Letters, microfilm reel 1215; and Greenough 1887.

28. Boston Daily Evening Transcript, January 17, 1866.

29. Lot no. 2525 on Mistletoe Path was owned by Elisabeth Bender Greenough's son Henry Greenough.

30. Sophia May Tuckerman (Mrs. Edward Tuckerman) (unlocated) and Charlotte Morton Dexter (Mrs. Andrew Dexter) (1808, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) are examples of portraits started by Stuart and finished by other artists. For Tuckerman's portrait see Park 1926, II, 769–70, cat. no. 857.

31. Inventory of the estate of Gilbert Stuart, Suffolk County probate record no. 28699. Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871) noted, "Stuart left several unfinished heads," including "one of Mrs. Perez Morton, of Massachusetts, belonging to Ernest Tuckerman." Tuckerman 1867, 110.

32. Wright 1963, 35.

33. Tuckerman 1853, 11.

34. Horatio Greenough to Samuel F. B. Morse, New York, May 15, 1828, quoted in Wright 1972, 12.

35. Such tight armholes set deep across the shoulder blades resulted in unnaturally erect posture. Lynne Bassett, Curator of Textiles and Fine Art, Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Mass., email to Laura Mills, April 4, 2000, Worcester Art Museum curatorial files (hereafter cited as WAM files). Thanks to Holly Trosthe Brigham for her help with Greenough's age as depicted in the two portraits.

36. Fielding 1920, 91.

37. Park 1926, I, cat. nos. 359–60, 371–72. Park also documents portraits of another family member who sat for Stuart: a bust portrait, David Stoddard Greenough (about 1814, private collection) and a larger half-length portrait, David Stoddard Greenough (about 1820, unlocated). See Park 1926, I, cat. nos. 357–58, 369–70. The latter was auctioned by John McInnis Auctioneers, Amesbury, July 26, 1998. See Antiques and the Arts Weekly, July 17, 1998, p. 126.

38. Richard Saltonstall Greenough was Elisabeth and David Greenough's youngest son. He married Sarah Dana Loring (1827–1885). Their son died unmarried, but their daughter, Nina (1847–1897), married Atherton Blight (1834–1909), of Philadelphia, and had three children, including Edith Blight. See Greenough 1969, 42, 51. For Edith Blight Thompson see Jean Renison to Laura Mills, March 25, 2000, WAM files. An announcement of her death in Bracknell, England, appeared in the New York Times on September 2, 1941.

39. Wagnière-Huntington [1929?], 13. The author, Laura Curtis Huntington, was the daughter of Elisabeth and David Greenough's daughter, Ellen Greenough Huntington (Mrs. Charles P. Huntington) (1814–1893), the second wife of Charles P. Huntington (1802–1868). Greenough 1969, 41–42.

40. Christie's 1961, 12. According to the auction catalogue, "The present owner is a great-great-granddaughter of the sitters and the pictures have remained in the family since they were painted." Edith Lowther was the daughter of Alice Blight (1873–1939) and her husband, Sir Gerard Augustus Lowther (1858–1916). Edith Lowther's second husband was Roger de Vilmorin, of Verrières le Buisson, Seine-et-Oise, France. Greenough 1969, 42–50.

According to a notice regarding the will of Edith Blight Thompson in the New York Times of September 12, 1941, one-quarter of her large estate was left to her niece, Baroness Edith Thenard, of France, who was Edith Lowther.

41. See R. Perman, administrative manager, Christie's, London, to Laurence Curtis, January 20, 1976, WAM files, and James Mitchell of John Mitchell and Son, London, email to Laura Mills, March 8, 2000, WAM files.

42. Lawrence Curtis to Hugh Gourley III, Colby College Museum of Art, February 19, 1976, WAM curatorial file; Memorandum Regarding Portraits by Gilbert Stuart of Mr. and Mrs. David Greenough, Laurence Curtis, February 20, 1976, WAM files; and Mildred Steinbach, Frick Art Reference Library, to Laurence Curtis, August 26, 1976, WAM files.

43. Nathalia Wright first published the portrait Elisabeth Bender Greenough, owned by Alice Thorndike, of Manchester, Massachusetts, in Wright 1963, 312. Later she cited the portrait in the possession of David Richardson, of Washington, D.C. See Wright 1972, 14.

44. Laurence Curtis to Hamilton P. Greenough, April 20, 1976, WAM files. For the Chester Harding portrait David Stoddard Greenough, Jr., see also American Portraits 1939, I, cat. no. 946; Lee 1969, 513; and Lipton 1985, 153. Laurence Curtis never saw the companion portrait Maria Foster Doane Greenough (Mrs. David Stoddard Greenough, Jr.), but it is described in American Portraits 1939, I, cat. no. 947.

Alice Thorndike also owned a portrait of David Greenough (unlocated) by Francis Alexander (1800–1880). Pierce 1965, 44, and David Richardson to Laura Mills, December 11, 1998, WAM files.