Benjamin Trott, Portrait of E. I. or E. J. Winter, Probably Elisha I. Winter, ca. 1799–1804

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “Benjamin Trott, Portrait of E. I. or E. J. Winter, Probably Elisha I. Winter, ca. 1799–1804,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.3224.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “Benjamin Trott, Portrait of E. I. or E. J. Winter, Probably Elisha I. Winter, ca. 1799–1804,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.3224.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This striking miniature of a man dates to Benjamin Trott’s most aesthetically successful period, having escaped the awkwardness and stylistic uncertainty of his early miniatures. Previously identified as E. J. Winter, the sitter is probably Elisha I. Winter, sometimes called Elisha J. Winter.¹ Winter was born in New York City on July 15, 1781, and later moved upstate to Peru, in Clinton County, New York, where he began mining iron ore. He was elected a Federalist congressman for Clinton and Essex counties in 1812, serving until 1815.²

Trott probably painted Winter between 1799 and 1804, when both men were living in New York City.³ Trott was well suited to depict a young man in his prime; his style in this period favored portraits of young men that have been called both “dashing” and “rakish.”⁴ Winter’s tousled hair, chiseled face, and angled body, with his extraordinarily high collar and elongated neck, are all representative features of Trott’s sought-after midcareer miniatures, dating between 1800 and 1820.⁵ Also characteristic of this period is Trott’s elegantly sparse use of pigment, allowing the bare ivory to shine through. This is particularly evident in the background, which uses the most sparing dashes of sheer blue, gray, and white washes to render sky and clouds. Winter’s strong profile and direct gaze at the viewer speak to a self-assured man ready to make his way in the world.

Winter later moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he owned a general store and a plantation where he enslaved numerous individuals.⁶ He also served as the inaugural president of the Lexington and Ohio Railroad in 1830⁷ before dying in Lexington on June 30, 1849.⁸

The neatly plaited hairwork in the reserve on the case back, probably made by Trott himself, bears an EIW or EJW monogram. Trott’s early advertisements in Boston in 1794 not only promoted his prowess in miniature painting but also highlighted his expertise in creating “devices in hair,” hinting at his multifaceted talents beyond portraiture.⁹

Notes

1. The letters I and J are often mistaken in nineteenth-century handwritten documents. Various contemporary newspapers record his middle initial variously as I or J. For example, an 1813 act by the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, records his name as “Elisha J. Winter,” while election results posted the previous year use an I initial. “An Act for the Relief of Elisha J. Winter,” National Advocate (New York), September 17, 1813, 3; “Election Results,” Columbian (New York), June 15, 1812, 2. Clay, Trott’s future colleague in Congress, was also painted by Trott, in 1805, during Trott’s trip on horseback to Kentucky: Henry Clay, The Papers of Henry Clay: Supplement 1793–1852, ed. Melba Porter Hay (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1992), 310.

2. “WINTER, Elisha I.,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, accessed July 3, 2024, https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/W000644.

3. Anne Ayer Verplanck, “Benjamin Trott, Miniature Painter” (master’s thesis, College of William and Mary, 1990), 46–47.

4. For example, “Men, their hair frequently brushed forward in the coup de vent style, at times appear disheveled—even rakish.” Dale T. Johnson, American Portrait Miniatures in the Manney Collection (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990), 216.

5. Johnson, American Portrait Miniatures, 216.

6. In the 1820 federal census, Elisha Winter’s household is recorded as holding one enslaved person. By 1830, that number had increased to ten enslaved people. Fourth Census of the United States, 1820, Lexington, Fayette, Kentucky, Page 55, NARA Roll M33_17, image 69, digitized on ancestry.com; 1830 Federal Census, Lexington, Fayette, Kentucky, series M19, roll 35, page 267, FHL film no. 0007814, digitized on ancestry.com. Note that in the 1830 census transcription, Winter’s name is incorrectly recorded as Elisha T. Winters.

7. Randolph Hollingsworth, Lexington, Queen of the Bluegrass (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2004), 37. Note that this is another source that spells Winter’s middle initial with a J.

8. “WINTER, Elisha I.”

9. Trott’s advertisement continues: “He flatters himself from practical experience and satisfaction given to those who have employed him, to merit the approbation of those who for the future may honour him with their commands.” “Advertisement,” Columbian Centinel (Boston), May 14, 1794, 4.

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1958;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 227.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 265.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 227, p. 74, (repro.), as E. J. Winter.