03-04-201203-04-2012
Skinner Auctions
Skinner AuctionsBoston MA
2585BBoston
March 4, 2012 11:00 AMCalender
43

American School, 19th Century Folk Portraits of Henry and Anna (Bellinger) Ehle of Chittenango Village, New York, c. 1838.

Sell one like this
$27,255$23,000
Auction: American Furniture & Decorative Arts - 2585BLocation: BostonDate / Time: March 04, 2012 11:00AM

Description:

American School, 19th Century

Folk Portraits of Henry and Anna (Bellinger) Ehle of Chittenango Village, New York,c. 1838. Unsigned. Oil on canvas, sight size 29 1/2 x 23 1/4 in., in matching original black-painted molded wood frames. Condition: Original untouched condition with minor paint loss.

Note: Henry Bellinger is portrayed holding a copy of the Chittenango Herald, and dated "October 31, 1838." The newspaper is also inscribed "Henry Ehle was born April 15, 1787." The background to the left is likely depicting the biblical story of Samson fighting the lion, and to the right a representation of the Chittenango Falls in the village where the couple lived. Henry's wife Anna is shown seated in a paint-decorated chair holding a red book, and wearing a fancy lace bonnet and gold jewelry, with a billowing tasseled curtain and a column behind her. A genealogy of the couple, compiled in Chittenango, New York, in 1980 accompanies the portraits.

Provenance: Formerly in the early 1950s collection at Gnarlehedge House in Skaneateles, New York, a historical house built in 1810, originally occupied by the Livingston family, which after a time was a restaurant/museum called Gnarlehedge House in the early 1950s, now privately owned. A copy of a listing of the portraits at that restaurant/museum house accompanies the portraits.


Literature: "Folk Art Here and There," The Magazine Antiques, August, 1953, p. 128.
Estimate $15,000-25,000

Minor paint loss around Anna's hair, face, bonnet ribbons, and dress, Henry has an area of paint loss on his left-facing forearm.

Additional info: According to the Oakwood Cemetery Interment Records, Chittenango Village, in the town of Sullivan, Madison County, New York, Henry Ehle was born April 13, 1787, and died March 29, 1870, Anna (Bellinger) Ehle was born December 14, 1794, and died within a month of her husband on April 27, 1870. The couple had eight children, one son Oliver, b. August 6, 1824, buried in the same cemetery.
See Our country and its people; a descriptive and biographical record of Madison County, New York edited by John by Smith, 1899, p. 48. A paragraph mentions the family: "Peter Ehle was a Revolutionary Soldier from Montgomery County, and settled in the southwest part of the town...He died on that farm and was succeeded by his son Henry, born April 13, 1787, and afterwards removed to Chittanango and died there in 1870."

Keywords

Henry Ehle, Anna (Bellinger) Ehle, Henry Bellinger, American School, Chittenango Falls, chair, Chittenango, Skaneateles, Oliver, Madison County, Sullivan, Montgomery County