“I am glad you have got home my pictuer, but I doubt he has made it lener or farer, but too rich in jewels, I am sure; but ’tis no great matter for another age to thinke mee richer than I was. I wish it could be mended in the face for sure ’tis very ugly. The pictuer is very ill-favourede, makes me quite out of love with myselfe, the face is so bigg and so fat it pleases mee not at all. It looks like one of the Windes puffinge—(but truly I think it is lyke the original).”
I am struck by a likeness in workmanship in the portraits of these two Plymouth dames, and the portrait of Madam Stoddard ([here]), and succeeding illustrations of the Gibbes children. I do wish I knew whether these were painted by Tom Child—a painter-stainer and limner referred to by Judge Samuel Sewall in his Diary, who was living in Boston at that time. Perhaps we may find something, some day, to tell us this. I feel sure these were all painted in America, especially the portraits of the Gibbes children. A great many coats-of-arms were made in Boston at this time, and I expect the painter-stainer made them. All painting then was called coloring. A man would say in 1700, “Archer has set us a fine example of expense; he has colored his house, and has even laid one room in oils; he had the painter-stainer from Boston to do it—the man who limns faces, and does pieces, and tricks coats.” This was absolutely correct English, but we would hardly know that the man meant: “Archer has been extravagant enough; he has painted his house, and even painted the woodwork of one room. He had the artist from Boston to do the work—the painter of faces and full-lengths, who makes coats-of-arms.”
It is hard to associate the very melancholy countenance shown [here] with a tradition of youth and beauty. Had the portrait been painted after a romance of sorrow came to this young maid, Rebecca Rawson, we could understand her expression; but it was painted when she was young and beautiful, so beautiful that she caught the eye and the wandering affections of a wandering gentleman, who announced himself as the son of one nobleman and kinsman of many others, and persuaded this daughter of Secretary Edward Rawson to marry him, which she did in the presence of forty witnesses. This young married pair then went to London, where the husband deserted Rebecca, who found to her horror that she was not his wife, as he had at least one English wife living. Alone and proud, Rebecca Rawson supported herself and her child by painting on glass; and when at last she set out to return to her childhood’s home, her life was lost at sea by shipwreck.
The portrait of another Boston woman of distinction, Mrs. Simeon Stoddard, is given [here]. I will attempt to explain who Mrs. Simeon Stoddard was. She was Mr. Stoddard’s third widow and the third widow also of Peter Sergeant, builder of the Province House. Mr. Sergeant’s second wife had been married twice before she married him, and Simeon Stoddard’s father had four wives, all having been widows when he married them. Lastly, our Mrs. Simeon Stoddard, triumphing over death and this gallimaufry of Boston widows, took a fourth husband, the richest merchant in town, Samuel Shrimpton. Having had in all four husbands of wealth, and with them and their accumulation of widows there must have been as a widow’s mite an immense increment and inheritance of clothing (for clothing we know was a valued bequest), it is natural that we find her very richly dressed and with a distinctly haughty look upon her handsome face as becomes a conqueror both of men and widows.
The straight, lace collar, such as is worn by Madam Padishal and shown in all portraits of this date, is, I believe, a whisk.
The whisk was a very interesting and to us a puzzling article of attire, through the lack of precise description. It was at first called the falling-whisk, and is believed to have been simply the handsome, lace-edged, stiff, standing collar turned down over the shoulders. This collar had been both worn with the ruff and worn after it, and had been called a fall. Quicherat tells that the “whisk” came into universal use in 1644, when very low-necked gowns were worn, and that it was simply a kerchief or fichu to cover the neck.
We have a few side-lights to help us, as to the shape of the whisk, in the form of advertisements of lost whisks. In one case (1662) it is “a cambric whisk with Flanders lace, about a quarter of a yard broad, and a lace turning up about an inch broad, with a stock in the neck and a strap hanging down before.” And in 1664 “A Tiffany Whisk with a great Lace down and a little one up, of large Flowers, and open work; with a Roul for the Head and Peak.” The roll and peak were part of a cap.
Mrs. Simeon Stoddard.