Painter of the Almond-Shaped Eyes

This archive article originally appeared in Antiques & Fine Art magazine.

Nina Fletcher Little has been described as “contributing more to American decorative arts scholarship during the twentieth century than any other single person".1 I had the good fortune of knowing this remarkable woman as a friend and adviser. An outstanding event for me, therefore, was the arrival of the 1994 Sotheby’s auction catalogues for the Little collection.2 Of all the fabulous paintings in the collection, the three I found particularly exciting were oil on canvas portraits identified only as having been found in the area of Hatfield, Massachusetts, and described as either “American School, 19th Century,” or “American School, late 18th/early 19th Century” (Figs. 1–3). Striking features of each of the portraits are the almond-shaped eyes, a black line between the lips, with another running from the eyebrow to the tip of the nose, rosy cheeks, stiff hand and torso, and a careful depiction of the clothing; each figure is presented in a large oval. In two of these the background is a uniform orange color; in the third it shifts more to black, with orange tones.

A number of other portraits have been discovered with the distinctive almond-shaped eyes in combination with the characteristics seen in the three Little collection images. They included Mother and Daughter with Almond-Shaped Eyes (Fig. 4), an oil on canvas in the collection of the Shelburne Museum. To be noted here is the mottled blue instead of orange background. It was in the Shelburne’s records where the descriptive reference to the artist’s trait of painting “almond-shaped eyes” was first introduced.

A privately owned portrait of a man (Fig. 5), identified on the back only as “Mr. Tobey,” is very similar to the subject of figure 1 in body position, enclosure in an oval, and, among other things, both wear the same frilled stock. Also similar is the mottled orange colored background.

The 1990 Sotheby’s auction catalog for the Barenholtz collection of important American folk art includes photographs of a pair of naïve portraits (Figs. 6, 7) of unknown subjects.3 They demonstrate the same features as seen in figures 1 through 4, but differ in that they are watercolor on paper rather than oil on canvas. The background is a mottled dark greenish color.

The portraits of Joseph Mills, (Fig. 8), and Lucy Rust Mills with infant baby (Fig.9), both oil on academy board, show the characteristic features of the artist, including the mottled orange background. Their names are identified in the records of the American Independence Museum of Exeter, New Hampshire, which owns the two portraits. Joseph was born in Nottingham, New Hampshire, and was a Lieutenant in the Revolutionary War. His wife, Lucy Rust, was from Newburyport, Massachusetts; they were married in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The infant is probably their daughter, Lucy Ann.4

As these various portraits were visually assembled during the past decade, I was reminded of a 1993 article I had co-written about an artist named Joseph Stone, who had painted a portrait of a Massachusetts girl who had served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War.5 This portrait is signed: “DEBORAH SAMPSON/ Drawn by Joseph Stone Framingham 1797” (Fig. 10). An engraving based on this painting was used for a book about Sampson’s life (1760–1827).6 According to the frontispiece of the biography, Stone traveled to Sharon, Massachusetts, to paint her portrait, approximately twenty miles from Framingham.  I had not previously made a connection between Sampson and the “Artist of the Almond-Shaped Eyes,” but on examination with a magnifying lens the almond shape of her eyes becomes evident. Once the connection was made and the image is viewed as if anew, the shape of her eyes, along with rosy cheeks, careful depiction of clothing, and the use of a colored oval background suggests that this painting was by the Artist of the Almond-Shaped Eyes, who, based on the signature, was Joseph Stone.

Stone may have ties with another image, a large portrait painted in oil on paperboard (Fig. 11). The sitter, according to a past owner, was Nancy Kidder. As with the other portraits associated with the Artist of the Almond-Shaped Eyes, her image shares similarities, including the orange background. On the reverse is a label inscribed “Painted at Boston 1795.” According to conservator Michael Heslip, the label is not as old as the paperboard support, which suggests the label was written some time after execution of the painting and is possibly erroneous. The identity of the sitter as Nancy Kidder has not been established, but there is the possibility that she was related to Peter Kidder of Oxford, Massachusetts. Peter was a bondsman in the administration of the estate of Josiah Stone (1724–1785) of Framingham, approximately thirty miles from Oxford. Stone was one of the leading men of the town’s military and civil affairs and a captain in the Framingham military company.7 Considering they lived in the same town and shared a surname, the elder Stone surely knew Joseph, though Joseph was only eleven when Josiah died. If there was a connection between the Kidders and Stones, it would have been well established by the time Joseph was painting.

Antiques dealer Stephen Corrigan of Stephen-Douglas Antiques brought a pair of portraits to my attention that seem to further strengthen a connection with Joseph Stone being the almond-eyes artist. Captain Phineas Stone and his wife, Mary Jarvis, (Figs. 12, 13) were married in 1796, probably the occasion for the portraits. The likenesses exhibit the typical features seen in the portraits of the Artist of the Almond-Shaped Eyes, including an orange background. Phineas was born in 1758 in Framingham, Massachusetts, to Abner Stone and Persis Moore. Phineas, like Joseph Stone, was a descendant of Gregory Stone.8 The familial associations between Phineas and Joseph, the fact that they both resided in Framingham, and the similar painting style to other works associated with the Artist of the Almond-Shaped Eyes, lends further credence to the artist being Joseph Stone.

Corrigan, who, in 2004, purchased the portraits of Phineas and his wife, was the one who initially made the connection with my 1993 article and Deborah Sampson, initiating this study. He was also aware of three mythological watercolor portraits (Figs. 14, 15), each signed “Joseph Stone” and dated 1807.9 Of the three images, two are inscribed “Framingham.” The mythological figures are each depicted in light, off colored backgrounds. The almond-shape of the eyes is not as pronounced as for the subjects of the oil paintings, but there are similarities, for instance with the face and hair of Venus and the portrait of Lucy Rust Mills (fig. 9) and Deborah Sampson (fig. 10).

While stylistic changes are not unusual during the span of an artist’s career, it is possible that the mythological images are more fluid in their renderings because they were likely based on print sources and were also painted in 1807, ten or more years after that of Deborah Sampson and Captain Stone and his wife (figs. 12–13). It is also possible the Stone, like some other naïve artists, painted different style portraits based on a client’s prominence and ability to pay; clients could receive simple “flat” portraits or those with a more academic appearance such as Sampson’s.10 This might help explain why Sampson’s facial features relate to the other portraits discussed, while her clothing and hair style are rendered with more sophistication, similar to that of Minerva and Venus.

Who was Joseph Stone? Joseph Stone was a painter by occupation. The son of Isaac and Persis Howe Stone, Joseph was born November 17, 1774 in Framingham, Massachusetts. He eventually moved to East Sudbury, where he died July 3, 1815 at the age of forty-three years.11 He married Sarah Bryan and died childless, apparently of “fits,” which could have been any number of medical or psychological conditions. No documentary evidence has yet been found relating to Stone’s training, if he indeed had any. It is possible that, like most naïve artists, he simply absorbed the work of others. For instance, Sarah Perkins (1771–1831), known as the Beardsley Limner until research in the 1980s identified the artist,12 was active along the old Boston Post Road in Massachusetts and Connecticut.13 Perkins characteristically painted sitters with elongated almond-shaped eyes. Considering that Joseph Stone also worked along the Post Road, but slightly later, it is possible that the work of Sarah Perkins was the inspiration for his manner of painting.

The presence of almond-shaped eyes alone is not sufficient to justify an attribution to Joseph Stone. A pair of portraits in a private collection were brought to my attention as the possible work of Stone, and although they shared the eye shape and some of the other characteristics, the sitters’ clothing dated the paintings to after Stone’s death. In addition, the subjects were from Vermont and there is no evidence Stone traveled beyond Massachusetts. While the mythological works and portraits of Phineas Stone and his wife place Joseph Stone within his hometown, the documented portrait of Deborah Sampson proves that he did travel extensive distances within Massachusetts. If the attributions to other works stand, he also travelled fifty miles to Ipswich for Joseph Mills and Lucy Rust Mills; about ninety miles to Hatfield to paint the portraits in the Little collection; and twenty miles to Boston to paint Nancy Kidder. Whether or not these and other undocumented works are by Stone may never be known, but long-distance travel was the life of an itinerant artist and would not preclude Stone’s involvement.

Arthur Kern, along with his late wife, Sybil, has spent the last thirty years writing and lecturing extensively on little known early American folk artists. He wishes to thank collectors, dealers, and the staffs of museums, historical society, and libraries for their assistance with this project.

This article is intended to provide readers with inspiration to continue the research into the identity of the Artist of the Almond-Shaped Eyes. Hopefully the information presented will provide additional insight into the relationships behind these and other commissions and the artist Joseph Stone.

This article was originally published in the 14th Anniversary issue of Antiques & Fine Art magazine, a fully digitized edition of which is available on afamag.com. AFA is affiliated with Incollect.