NORTH TARRYTOWN, N.Y. -- It is telling that artists of the Colonial and Federal period often called themselves limners. The word was first employed during the Medieval period to refer to the illuminators of manuscripts, but by the Sixteenth Century artists - particularly portraitists - had adopted the name.

"The Limner's Trade: Selected Colonial and Federal Paintings from the Collection of Historic Hudson Valley," on view at Philipsburg Manor Gallery through July 31, explores the varied careers of such American artists as Nehemiah Partridge, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart and John Wesley Jarvis, men who consciously linked themselves to a centuries-old tradition yet gave it an American twist.

Highlights from Historic Hudson Valley's outstanding collection of early paintings and miniatures speak to their training, skills, approaches and successes. The art of this era expressed themes particularly Colonial and American in nature, ones which would reoccur during the art history of the United States.

American Response

Europe served as the wellspring of "true" art and artists and set the standards for gentility and style. Paintings introducing the exhibition illustrate the importance of Europe as a source of art information during the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries.

A charming portrait of the toddler Marya Vollenhoven and a still life by Jus Van Huysum, both Dutch in origin, represent middle class patronage of the arts in the Netherlands, an interest mirrored in the Dutch colony of New Netherland (later, New York). Wealthy Americans acquired imported paintings from galleries, auctions or trips abroad and displayed them as status symbols.

Americans who returned from European travels with portraits of themselves possessed totems even more widely admired than "Old Masters." The noted French artist Louis Leopold Boilly (1761-17845) executed a tender portrait of the child Lewis Livingston, who visited his relatives, the Armstrongs, in Paris when General John Armstrong was serving as United States Minister to France between 1804 and 1810. Livingston would later travel back to France to study art in his late teens. His self-portrait of himseated at a drafting table represents his personal pursuit of the artistic life and the vital role European teachers and art collections played in tutoring Americans.

No doubt a limited knowledge of art in the Colonies contributed to the pre-eminence of the portrait, but the passion was even more deeply rooted. Portraits are remarkably versatile in that they can "stop time," raise a person up for admiration, confer status and symbolize wealth. A portrait miniature on ivory serves as a deeply personal and portable reminder of a cherished one, who might be separated by distance or death.

As the Eighteenth Century progressed, Americans demanded a style of portraiture slightly different from that practiced in Europe. Generally speaking, while Europeans favored idealized portrayals, Americans sought a hard-edged realism in their portraits. This taste was shaped in part by the Boston artist John Singleton Copley's (1738-1815) painting technique that held great sway over American artists and patrons.

"Margaret Beekman Livingston" by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) exemplifies Americans' overwhelming desire to have themselves portrayed "as is." Stuart, a master of the European style of romanticized and prettified portraiture, could have depicted her in a much softer mode. Instead, he captured a tough old woman in an unflinching, some might say harsh, manner. Family members, however, loved the painting and her four daughters each received a copy.

Decorative Painters

Decorative painters, such as Evert Duyckinck (1621-c. 1703) emigrated to New Netherland as early as 1640. Duyckinck, who listed his primary profession as glazier, may have executed much of his painting on the ephemeral foundation of glass. Evert founded a four-generation "dynasty" of decorative painters, some of whom would also paint portraits on canvas. The dramatic depiction of Abraham Van Cortlandt, for example, has been attributed to Gerardus (1695-1742) or Evert Duyckinck III (1677-1727), Evert's grandson and great-grandson.

The rendering of the Van Cortlandt coat of arms represents the sort of banner and coach ornamentation practiced during the Federal period. The yellow pine cupboard, embellished by cherubs, fruit, and roses growing from silver bowls, is one of about a dozen cupboards or kasten with similar decoration created in the New York area. The gray-green palette and fertile subject matter of bunches of fruit have been employed for centuries in the Netherlands.

Limited Nature of Art Life

Because we take as divine right access to art classes, inexpensive art supplies and treasure-filled museums, it is difficult for us to imagine the challenges faced by aspiring artists and connoisseurs during the Colonial period. Many novice artists struggled to teach themselves through observation and copying. They turned to European prints, particularly mezzotint portraits, for information about overall design, styles, backgrounds, and poses.

Likenesses of royalty, the celebrity "glossies" of their day, were circulated on either side of the Atlantic and served as direct inspiration for portraits of less worldly Colonials. Illustrated Dutch Bibles imported into New York were also utilized as artistic models. A school of religious or scripture painting, thought to have been fueled in large part by Old and New Testament engravings, developed in the Albany area.

Prints failed to inform novice artists and connoisseurs about the use of color and brushwork. For this kind of knowledge, individuals had to examine paintings, which could be seen in the houses of the wealthy, studios of artists and, for a fee, at public exhibitions.

The still life belonging to Pierre Van Cortlandt, thought to be one of "3 old fruit and bird pictures" listed on an inventory of his possessions, is a rare example of a painting which is not a portrait that can be traced to a specific New York owner during the Colonial period.

Many artists followed a long-standing tradition of displaying works in a small showroom attached to their studios. Auguste DemilliŠre was not alone when he advertised that those "who wish to see his cabinet of paintings, composed of about one hundred papers of the best masters of Italy, Flanders and France, may see them every day from 3 to 5 o'clock in the afternoon, at his house in Pearl-street."

For the price of admission, early Americans could enjoy small groups of paintings or a single "monumental" work. Nehemiah Partridge, represented in this exhibition by portraits of Anna and Caleb Beck, advertised his "ITALIAN MATCHEAN," or Moving Picture, wherein are to be seen, Wind-Mills and Water Mills moving round, Ships Sayling on the Sea, and several curious Figures, very delightful to behold" on view in Boston.

Robert Livingston, whose portrait by Gilbert Stuart is on display in the exhibition, spearheaded the founding of the New York Academy of Arts, which opened its doors in 1802. This fine arts museum featured copies of Old Masters as well as original works. Charles Willson Peale, who later established what is considered the first major American multi-disciplinary museum, began mounting exhibitions during the 1770s in a picture gallery attached to his studio in Annapolis. The expansive museum that he eventually created contained a portrait gallery of great Americans.

The First Limners

Among the earliest canvases in the collection of Historic Hudson Valley are the half-length portraits of Caleb (1680-1733) and Anna Beck of Schenectady, attributed to Nehemiah Partridge (c. 1683-c. 1730) and probably painted about 1724. Partridge began his career in Boston, laboring not only as a portrait painter but also as a japanner, decorative painter and dealer in paints. He later worked as an itinerant artist, executing portraits in the upper Hudson River Valley and Virginia.

"Abraham Van Cortlandt," a princely full-length portrayal, arrests viewers with its quiet power. It is thought that Gerardus Duyckinck or his cousin Evert Duyckinck III painted young Van Cortlandt circa 1725. The same artist is responsible for companion portraits of Abraham's brothers, Pierre and John, which, during occupancy by the family, hung in the Croton manor house but now are in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. The limner borrowed Abraham's aristocratic pose and magnificent architectural surroundings from a 1701 mezzotint of Richard, Lord Clifford and Lady Jane Boyle by John Smith after Geoffrey Kneller.

Wollaston & Rococo

While the canvases of John Wollaston (active 1733-1775) do not elicit rhapsodic verse today, we should not underestimate the excitement the Rococo style sparked in a Colonial audience. This new aesthetic, which emphasized asymmetry, delicacy and the play of light, delighted American patrons of the arts.

The almond-shaped eyes that Wollaston bestowed upon all of his subjects - he created approximately 300 portraits while in the Colonies - continue to intrigue viewers. Some art historians credit them to the European enchantment with Asia, a taste which found expression through the Rococo style. An artistic conceit unknown elsewhere in the American Colonies, these refined eyes appear in the work of other English Rococo painters, including Thomas Hudson. Wollaston's careful attention to portraying shimmering silks is also typical of the Rococo fascination with shiny surfaces and reflected light.

Nearly all of the limners whose work we are discussing found travel necessary during their careers in order to secure patronage, and Wollaston is no exception. He is first known to have arrived in New York from England in 1749. He worked there until 1752, when he journeyed through the southern Colonies on a painting tour that lasted seven years. In 1759, he set off for India where he served as a magistrate in the court of Calcutta and amassed a fortune. Riches notwithstanding, he returned to America in 1767 to pursue a second painting expedition. He then sailed for England and retired in Bath.

Wollaston apparently found fitting and sympathetic patrons in the Philipse family. It is thought that Wollaston painted Frederick Philipse II, his wife, Joanna Brockholls, and all of their grown children. Portraits of daughters Mary (1730-1825) and Margaret (1733-1752) are included in "The Limner's Trade." The likenesses of their sister, Susannah (1727-1822), and two males, thought to be members of the Philipse family, are currently among the New-York Historical Society's holdings. The Metropolitan Museum owns Wollaston's portraits of Joseph and Anna French Reade, the latter a first cousin of Frederick Philipse II.

The portrait of William Smith (1697-1769) may be considered extraordinary, not for what appears on its face, but for what may be found on the reverse. It is one of the very few signed and dated portraits by Wollaston, bearing a "latinized" inscription of Smith's name and age and Wollaston's name and the date of 1751.

The Peale Family

The Peales figured as another multi-talented and prolific dynasty of painters. The scion of the family, Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), a highly energetic and directed artist, scientist, inventor and museologist, theorized that anyone could learn to paint. He instilled that belief in his 16 children, many of whom he named after famous painters.

The portrait of Eva De Peyster (1782-1807) is in keeping with the theme of devotion to family life seen throughout Peale's oeuvre. Peale executed the likeness while he and his second wife, Elizabeth, were visiting her Manhattan relatives, Mr and Mrs James De Peyster, and "their only daughter and great pet," Eva, called Eliza. Peale dashed off the portrait of the teen-ager as a surprise for her parents while they attended church.

Charles Willson Peale is perhaps most well-known for his full-length portrait of George Washington, commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania in 1779. The eldest Peale executed at least 12 full-length and five three-quarter length renditions of this now famous portrait, and for generations, Peale family members happily provided a willing audience with images of the "Father of Our Country."

"George Washington at Yorktown Heights," attributed to James Peale (1749-1731), is similar to the Charles Willson Peale original in overall composition, yet it stands on its own in the use of novel painting technique, accessories and scenery. While the battlefield at Princeton rated as the favorite background in the early Peale portraits of General Washington, Yorktown Heights, the site of the definitive battle that concluded the Revolutionary War, arose as an obvious alternative. The Metropolitan Museum of Art also owns copy of "George Washington at Yorktown Heights" by James Peale.

Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860), the second oldest son of Charles Willson and nephew of James, studied painting with his father while still a child. Following in his father's footsteps, Rembrandt churned out portraits of Washington and displayed an abiding interest in the practical application of science, manifested in a plan to illuminate the city of Baltimore at night through the use of gaslight. Neo-classical in air, subtly tinted and finely painted, Mary Pennington Barton (1771-1819) is typical of Rembrandt Peale's refined offerings. Mrs Barton's dreamy gaze is not hers alone, but can be found in other Rembrandt Peale portraits.

Gilbert Stuart

Gilbert Stuart is perhaps the only artist more famous than the Peales for producing portraits of George Washington. In this exhibition, he is represented by portraits of slightly less famous Americans. Hallmarks of Stuart's style include his secure application of paint, bold brushwork and the layering of glazes that give subjects glowing skin tones.

Stuart also possessed an idiosyncratic personality, but of a much different sort. Loyal to the throne and anxious to find work, the Rhode Island-born painter spent the Revolutionary War years in London studying with Benjamin West. There, he adopted the dashing style of portraiture practiced by England's Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds and won particular acclaim for his skill in rendering faces. Money troubles are thought to have prompted a painting excursion to Ireland and his eventual return to America, where he settled first in New York in 1793. Stuart was shocked when he discovered that the flamboyant style that had won him high praise in Europe was not warmly received in the States.

The three-quarter length portrait of Frederick Philipse (1755-1829) illustrates the elegant, painterly style Stuart had perfected in Britain. Philipse, a junior member of a loyalist family attainted of treason during the Revolutionary War, managed to hold onto his property in Putnam County after the rest of his family's holdings had been seized and sold by New York's Committee of Forfeiture. Although painted about the same time, Stuart's portraits of Chancellor Robert Livingston (1746-1813), the example on display, one of many versions, and his mother, Margaret Beekman Livingston, are executed in a more realistic style.

Gilbert Stuart was successful not only because of his facility of technique, but also because of his facility of wit. Having one's portrait painted involved hours patiently posing and could be exceedingly tedious if the artist was not entertaining. Some artists, like Stuart, even allowed friends of the subject to visit the studio and witness the event.

Ezra Ames

Owing an obvious stylistic debt to Stuart, the Ames portrait of John Paulding (1758-1818), one of the three patriots who captured the British agent Major John Andre in Tarrytown during the Revolution, falls into the category of depictions of great personages. According to Paulding family tradition, the portrait hung for decades in the state capitol.

Ames captured many members of the extended Van Cortlandt family on canvas. Four of his portraits, including Anne Stevenson Van Cortlandt (1774-1821), are part of the collection displayed at Van Cortlandt Manor. Two versions of the portrait exist. The other, thought to be a copy, is in the collection of the New-York Historical Society. A striking Ames portrait of Philip Van Cortlandt, Ann's brother-in-law, may be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In its unsophisticated style and construction, Lake George and Caldwell Village harkens back to Ames' start as a sign painter. The simple landscape on wooden panel, bearing a block-lettered title, which runs along the bottom edge, is framed by four applied strips. The painting is referred to twice in the accounts of Ames: initially in 1812 and, again, ten years later, when he painted out the fort in the right foreground which had burned down. The original owner of the painting, James Caldwell, was the grandfather of Catherine Beck, who married into the Van Cortlandt family in 1836.

Miniatures

Many of the artists whose careers are discussed in the exhibition and accompanying catalogue practiced the exacting art of watercolor painting on ivory. These precious paintings imbued with sentiment were designed to be portable and, in fact, were often incorporated into jewelry. Historic Hudson Valley's collection of over 30 of these miniatures, ranging in date from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries, is remarkable in that the histories of these highly personal objects have remained intact.

One miniature in the collection depicts the slightly disturbing scene of a woman kneeling before a broken column topped by a flame while a man watches her from a clump of bushes. Attributed to the noteworthy John Ramage (c. 1748-1802), the miniature was supposedly commissioned to mark Catherine Clinton's secret marriage to British officer Captain John Taylor during the Revolution. It is hard to imagine that the Clinton family would have approved of the match, since George Clinton, father of Catherine, served as the leader of the rebel colony of New York. Taylor returned to England and died before the couple could be reunited.

Not all miniatures were memorials. The most significant miniature on display is Jean Fran‡ois de Vall‚e's (active in New Orleans 1808-1818) half-length portrait of Andrew Jackson, the earliest known image of the man who would become the seventh president of the United States. Jackson presented the miniature to his friend and future owner of Montgomery Place, Edward Livingston.

Jackson had known Livingston, a New Yorker who moved to Louisiana, since 1796, when they served in Congress together. They met again in 1814, when Major General Jackson traveled to New Orleans to meet the British in battle. Jackson commanded the American forces in the final and famous engagement, fought on January 8, 1815, that concluded the War of 1812. A great legal mind, Livingston would become a trusted aide and advisor to Jackson. An engraving based on the miniature and attributed to ArsŠne LacarriŠre Latour appeared in 1816, one of many images of the then recently crowned American hero.

John Wesley Jarvis

Eccentric personalities arrived on the Manhattan art scene long before the Twentieth Century. Witness the career of the charmingly ostentatious John Wesley Jarvis (1780-1840), who could be considered one of New York's first bohemians. The dashing figure he cut on the street, swathed in "a long coat trimmed with furs like a Russian prince" and accompanied by two huge dogs, epitomized his panache.

Jarvis' splashy appearance as an adult could not have been anticipated during his childhood. Born in England to a religious family, this great-great-nephew of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism on his mother's side, was also descended from a family of early New York Methodists on his father's side. He emigrated to Philadelphia with his family in 1786. There, he studied engraving with Edward Savage and moved with him to New York in 1801. Aside from painting trips made in the South, Jarvis used New York as a base of operations for most of his career. Henry Inman, among other successful artists, counted Jarvis as a teacher and employer. Inman remembered that when he worked as assistant to Jarvis, they produced six portraits per week with Jarvis painting the face and body and Inman providing the background. Perhaps as a result of this breakneck pace, the artistic output of John Wesley Jarvis is judged as uneven by art historians.

The exhibition and catalogue conclude with Jarvis portraits of two high-profile New Yorkers, Pierre Van Cortlandt (1721-1814) and Washington Irving (1783-1859), men who represent quite different spheres of outlook and experience, circa 1810. Jarvis straddled both of their worlds. His Methodist upbringing would have been warmly received by the Van Cortlandts, early supporters of the religious movement in New York. Irving, a member of New York's young intellectual circle, would have embraced Jarvis as a kindred spirit. Convincing and sensitive, both portraits capture the respective spirits of the sitters.

The elderly Pierre Van Cortlandt, dressed in Eighteenth Century style clothing with his blue-veined hand clutching a cane, fixes the viewer's stare with a weary yet kindly gaze. His direct and psychologically revealing portrait marks how far American art, and life in general, had evolved since his childhood. A quintessential Colonial and New Nation citizen, Van Cortlandt exemplified the hard-won path taken by many Eighteenth Century Americans.

While Pierre Van Cortlandt epitomizes the Eighteenth Century past, the portrait of Washington Irving anticipated the future for Americans in its romanticism and sentiment. Jarvis portrayed Irving, later a world-famous writer, diplomat, antiquarian and amateur architect, as a Byronic figure on the brink of literary success. The painting, which is one of the most widely-reproduced portraits of the writer, symbolizes Irving's lifelong pursuit of the romantic.

There is an added irony to the close proximity of the portraits of Van Cortlandt and Irving. Jarvis painted Irving in 1809, the same year in which the young writer published his satirical Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York. Although he would later express half-hearted regret over his pointed barbs aimed at the early inhabitants of New Netherland, Irving did not spare Pierre Van Cortlandt's ancestors.

From Nehemiah Partridge to John Wesley Jarvis, the trade of limner and the ability to wield paint figured as a challenging and prestigious, if not always lucrative, career during the Colonial and Federal period.

"The Limner's Trade: Selected Colonial and Federal Paintings from the Collection of Historic Hudson Valley" was organized by Kathleen Eagen Johnson, curator of collection at Historic Hudson Valley.