Anna Fenn Parker (Mrs. John Van Schaick Lansing) Pruyn
Charlotte Burt Kirkham (1856-1933)
Date:
1897
Medium:
Watercolor on ivory in gold frame with pearls
Inscription:
Signed and dated, lower left: Charlotte Kirkham 1897
Credit:
Gift of Huybertje Lansing Pruyn (Mrs. Charles S.) Hamlin
Accession Number:
1943.36.16
Comments:
Invention of the daguerreotype in 1839 meant that painted miniatures were headed for extinction. More and more people let cameras capture their likeness, but there was a resurgence of interest in painted miniature portraits in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For patrons familiar with family miniatures from earlier periods, continuing a tradition was an important element in bringing about the revival of painted miniatures one last time before photography triumphed. The sitter was eulogized as a leader of Albany society, a "representative through more than half a century of all that was best by choice and tradition in American social life."
