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Painting of Sarah (Gibbons) DeWolf
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Item:
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Oil painting
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Subject:
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Sarah (Gibbons) DeWolf
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Event:
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Not applicable
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Location:
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Not known
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Date:
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ca. 1840-1848
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Creator:
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Not known
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Donor:
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Paul Gibb
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Alterations:
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Cropped a digital photo of the original painting
Adjusted brightness
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Comments:
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This painting belongs to Sarah (Gibbons) DeWolf's great-great-great-grandson,
Paul Gibb.
Family tradition, in two different branches of the family, holds that the subject of
this painting is Sarah (Gibbons) DeWolf. In Paul's family, which held the painting,
Sarah was said to be the sitter; in a collateral branch, which held a photograph
of the painting, Sarah was also labeled as the subject. This
tradition is confirmed indirectly by the settlement of her husband
Joseph DeWolf's
estate in 1846, which included, as part of an allowance to the widow, "A Picture
of the widow." Margaret (King) DeWolf most likely
cared for her mother-in-law Sarah after Joseph's death, and her daughter
Frances (DeWolf) Allen
definitely cared for Margaret after Margaret's husband
Samuel died; Frances was
Paul's great-grandmother. Thus was the painting most likely passed down in this
family.
The subject's dress and bonnet date this painting to the 1840s.
However, this portrait may have been
painted by an itinerant portrait painter, a common practice at that time. The painter
would travel with partially painted canvases, with the dress, for instance,
already painted in. Th
en he would simply add facial features and hair. Therefore,
the subject's clothing cannot positively date the picture, since it could have been
painted on an earlier canvas. In this case, though, the sitter's apparent advanced age,
combined with her known death at the age of 83 in 1848, confirm a date in the 1840s.
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Transcription:
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Not applicable
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