Leontine de Kay Townsend (Mrs. John) Lansing (1859-1932)

Charles James Turrell (1846-1932)
Date: c. 1910
Medium: Watercolor on ivory in metal frame
Dimensions: 3 H x 2 W (oval ivory panel)
Inscription: Signed lower right: C T
Credit: Gift of Leontine de Kay Townsend Lansing
Accession Number: 1923.2.1
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. This particular portrait was probably copied from an earlier one.