Booth Painting: A Portrait Of Newtown’s Past Comes To Light

By R. Scudder Smith

Call out an auctioneer to appraise an estate, and he or she will search everywhere. Closets that have not been used for years, dark corners of an attic, and horse stalls and hay lofts in an old barn are all likely looking places and seldom missed. Often a treasure, long forgotten, awaits. Among the many tales of finding things in such places was a story told by Ethan Merrill of Merrill’s Auction Gallery of Williston, Vt., who turned up a double portrait with strings to Newtown.

“We were called to look over the contents of a Federal home located on the green in Crown Point, N.Y.,” Ethan said, “and ultimately we turned the sale over to another auctioneer.” However, not before looking around in a brick carriage barn on the property and discovering a double portrait, in terrible condition, but worthy of restoration. The sitters were identified on the back of the canvas as Ruben Booth, age 49 years, and his wife Mary, age 45, both from Newtown, Conn. The oil on canvas, 61 by 35 inches, without stretcher, but fastened to an old Victorian era frame, was done in 1790, also documented verso.

Ruben Booth, related to Cyrenius H. Booth for whom Newtown’s library is named, was born in Newtown on May 14, 1741, and died here on July 12, 1797. On November 20, 1763, he married Mary Smith, baptized at Redding, Conn., July 8, 1744, and died in Newtown October 2, 1824, at the age of 80.

The portrait was pictured in an advertisement placed by Merrill’s in Antiques and The Arts Weekly, sister publication of The Newtown Bee, and was brought to the attention of Dan Cruson, town historian, and Lincoln Sander, president of the Newtown Historical Society. Sander bid by phone at Merrill’s February 4 sale, dropping out at $8,000. “I was hoping to buy it and interest the society in it; however, I knew the financial limitations of the society and also restoration costs, which put it out of reach,” he said.

The portrait went finally to Samuel Herrup, a dealer in fine antiques, with a shop in Sheffield, Mass., and was exhibited for the first time at the Philadelphia Antiques Show three weeks ago. “There was interest in the painting, as double portraits are not common, but it did not sell there,” Herrup said. He also noted that he could make out the date on the canvas before conservation, recognizing the style in which Ralph Earl signed his work, but the RL signature did not become evident until it had been totally cleaned and preserved by Voust Conservation of Oxford, Conn., with the information retained on the back of the canvas. It is now in a contemporary frame.

Ralph Earl was born in Leicester or Shrewsbury, Mass., on May 11, 1751, and died in Bolton, Conn., on August 16, 1801. An itinerant artist, he painted at least 183 portraits and his career can be divided into three periods. His early years as an artist produced few attributable works, and his second period was spent in England where he studied in London with Benjamin West. His most productive period was his last 16 years, three living in New York City and his last 13 painting in New York State, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

During his final years he developed many patrons in Fairfield, Greenfield Hill, Hartford, Litchfield, Middletown, New Milford, Stamford and Norwich, and a book by historian Betsy Kornhauser has him in Newtown in 1790 when this portrait was executed. The picture descended in part of the Booth family that moved to Vermont and at some point was given for work done, ending up in New York State.

For those who might have further interest in this piece of Newtown’s history, contact Samuel Herrup at 413-822-1471.