Title: Samuel Dinsmoor
Object Name: Painting
Object ID: 2017.006
Creator: Marchant, Edward D. (1806-1887)Artist
Date: 1831 circa
Description: Portrait of Governor Samuel Dinsmoor (1766-1835), attributed to Edward Dalton Marchant (1806-1887). Oil on linen canvas, relined. Vertical rectangle. Bust-length portrait of white-haired man wearing white shirt, high collar, black tie, black vest, and black coat. Paper label adhered to back of stretcher, inscribe in ink: "Gov. Samuel Dinsmoor / 1766-1835 / Painted by Marchaud [sic] 1831". Gold painted wood frame with gesso decorations.
Material: Textile
Dimensions: H-29.9 W-25 inches
Provenance: Samuel Dinsmoor was born in Windham, NH, July 1, 1766, attended the public schools and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1789. He taught school, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1795. He commenced practice in Keene, NH, served as postmaster, served in and rose to the rank of major general in the state militia, and was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives, serving from 1811 to 1813. Dinsmoor held local and state offices before winning election as governor in 1831, 1832, and 1833. As governor he supported strengthening the state militia, establishment of a state hospital for the insane, railroads, textile manufacturing, and banks. The portrait was donated by a descendant of Samuel Dinsmoor.
Edward Dalton Marchant was born in Edgartown, MA, in 1806. Self-taught, Marchant worked as an itinerant portrait painter in the northeast until the late 1830s when he moved to New Orleans. By 1845 he moved back East and settled in Philadelphia and while there painted many portraits of notable men and families, many of which now hang in public galleries. He painted portraits of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson, as well as a portrait of Congressman Henry Clay. His portrait of Lincoln, painted in 1863, is at the Union League Club in Philadelphia. His works are also in the collections of the Museum of Arts in Boston, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the New-York Historical Society. Late in life Marchant resided in Asbury Park, NJ, where he died in 1887.
Credit Line: Gift of Harriet Dinsmoor Parish
People:
Dinsmoor, Samuel (1766-1835),
Marchant, Edward D. (1806-1887)
Subjects:
Dinsmoor, Samuel,
Governors