Citation
Chicago:
Blythe Sobol, “Edward Samuel Dodge, Portrait of Janet Mitchel Wilson, 1847,” catalogue entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan, The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, vol. 1, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.3204.
MLA:
Sobol, Blythe. “Edward Samuel Dodge, Portrait of Janet Mitchel Wilson, 1847,” catalogue entry. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan. The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, vol. 1, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.3204.
Artist's Biography
See the artist’s biography in volume 4.
Catalogue Entry
Read more about this object at the associated catalogue entry.
Provenance
Commissioned by the sitter Janet Mitchel Wilson (1828–1899) and her husband, Dr. Thomas Epps Wilson (1817–1876), Warrenton, NC, 1847–1899 [1];
By descent to their daughter, Lizzie Holman Wilson Montgomery (1850–1944), Warrenton, NC, 1899–1944;
By descent to her daughter, Elizabeth Mitchel Montgomery (“Miss Betsy”) (1882–1981), Raleigh, NC, 1944–1981 [2];
Inherited by Robert Hal McNeely (b. 1950), Raleigh, NC, 1981–at least 1984 [3];
Sold from Historical Auction: Autographs, Posters, Photographs, Riba Auctions, Glastonbury, CT, June 17, 1989, lot 42 [4];
Probably with Larry Gottheim Fine Early Photographs, Binghamton NY, by 1991 [5];
Probably purchased from Gottheim by Alan Trachtenberg (1932–2020), Hamden, CT, by 1991 [6];
Purchased from Alan Trachtenberg by Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO, by 2005;
Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.
Notes
[1] Both Thomas Epps Wilson and Janet Mitchel Wilson are recorded in the account book of the artist, Edward Samuel Dodge. “Doc Wilson” is listed in April 1847, with no associated fee. “Mrs. Doct. Wilson” is listed in November 1847 with a charge of $25.00. Notably, the entry immediately above Mrs. Wilson is for “Mrs. Mitchell,” probably the mother of Janet Mitchel Wilson, Elizabeth Holman Person Mitchel (1797–1872). Carol Aiken to Blythe Sobol, November 18, 2018, NAMA curatorial files.
[2] The portrait miniatures are listed in an inventory of her belongings at her home at 124 E. Edenton Street, Raleigh, NC, dated July 30, 1978, no. 5, located in the living room. The miniatures are described as “2 miniatures in one frame of Thos. And Janet M. Wilson.” NAMA curatorial files. I am grateful to Julie Weber for her assistance with accessing the object file for these works, and particularly for scouring the Registration files for additional information.
[3] In a handwritten document dated October 19, 1984, McNeely described the miniatures and other Wilson family mementos as “my most prized possessions from Miss Betsy.” He subsequently explained, “The miniatures are of her grandparents Dr. Thos. Epps Wilson and Janet Marshall Mitchel Wilson.” “Miss Betsy” was Elizabeth Mitchel Montgomery. Notes in the NAMA curatorial file confirm this identification. Mr. McNeely is listed as the designated recipient of the portrait miniatures in Elizabeth Montgomery’s official inventory, dated July 30, 1978. In the inventory, notably, McNeely is described as living in the “apartment upstairs.” NAMA curatorial files.
[4] Lot 42 is described as “A pair of miniatures on ivory, of Janet Marshall Mitchell, and her husband, Dr. Thomas Epps Wilson, from the Elgin Plantation, Warren County, North Carolina. Miniatures are not signed, but probably done by a local Raleigh N.C. artist. Cased in shadow box frame; very fine, 2 1/2 x 3. Photocopy of estate inventory, etc. evaluable.” According to Riba’s list of prices realized, lot 42 sold for $400. NAMA curatorial files.
[5] In the 1990s, Gottheim (b. 1936) operated Larry Gottheim Fine Early Photographs. He is also a filmmaker and founder of the Department of Cinema at Binghamton University, State University of New York. A letter in the curatorial file from Larry Gottheim, regarding the condition of the miniatures after shipping and promising enclosed “supplementary information” on the portraits, indicates Gottheim may have sold them to Trachtenberg some time after the Riba sale in 1988. Larry Gottheim to Alan Trachtenberg, May 21, 1991, NAMA curatorial files. No bill of sale has been found.
[6] Trachtenbeg was a Professor of American Studies at Yale University. He published a landmark book on American photography two years after the miniatures were sold at Riba: Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans–A Study of American Photography from 1839 to 1938 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990). The artworks were in Trachtenberg’s collection by 1991, when he corresponded with Larry Gottheim regarding their condition. Larry Gottheim to Alan Trachtenberg, May 21, 1991, NAMA curatorial files.
Exhibitions
Mirror with a Memory: The American Daguerreotype, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 13, 2001–January 7, 2002, no cat.
References
Historical Auction: Autographs, Posters, Photographs (Glastonbury, CT: Riba Auctions, June 17, 1989), lot 42.
Keith F. Davis and Jane L. Aspinwall, The Origins of American Photography, 1839–1855: From Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate (New Haven: Yale, 2007), 84–85.
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