Painting

Title:

Nancy M. Pierce McNeil

Object Name:

Painting

Object ID:

2020.017

Creator:

Belknap, Zedekiah (1781-1858)Artist

Date:

circa 1830

Description:

Portrait of Nancy M. Pierce McNeil (1792-1837), Hillsborough, NH, c. 1830. Attributed to Zedekiah Belknap (1781-1858). Oil on wood panel. Half-length portrait, facing right, of an adult woman dressed in black with a bonnet. Ink inscription on reverse: "Nancy Pierce (dau. of Gov. Benj. Pierce), by Zedekiah Belknap, 1781-1858 (wife of Gen. Solomon McNeil,) / (great grandm. of Murray Corse)". Gilded gesso and wood frame.

Material:

Wood

Dimensions:

H-27 W-22.5 inches

Provenance:

Based on the style of dress and the age of the sitter, this portrait was probably painted c. 1830 for the Solomon McNeil family. It seems to have descended in the family of the sitter's son, John McNeil (1822-1885), to his grandson, John M. Stark (1881-1961) of Concord, NH. Stark's cousin, Dean M. Corse (1919-2013), a great-great-grandson of Solomon and Nancy M. (Pierce) McNeil, purchased this and other Pierce and McNeil family artifacts at the auction of Stark's estate in 1961. The portrait was sold to a dealer by Dean M. Corse sometime after a Dawson and Nye Auction in Morris Plains, NJ, January 24, 2008. Owned by Raymond Agler Fine Arts, Gloucester, MA, 2015. Most recently, it was purchased by the donor from CRN Auctions, Inc., Cambridge, MA, Lot 37, September 20, 2020.

Nancy M. (Pierce) McNeil (1792-1837) was the eldest daughter of Benjamin and Anna (Kendrick) Pierce. Born in Hillsborough, NH, she married Solomon McNeil (1782-1863), a storekeeper, farmer, and general in the New Hampshire state militia, and descendant of a New Hampshire Scots-Irish family, on February 16, 1815. The couple had four children: Ann, Solomon, John and Charlotte. Nancy M. McNeil died in Hillsborough on April 27, 1837.

Artist Zedekiah Belknap (1781-1858), the son of Zedekiah and Elizabeth (Wait) Belknap, was born in Auburn, MA. In 1794, Belknap moved with his family to a farm in Wethersfield, VT. He enrolled at Dartmouth College, where he studied divinity, and graduated in the class of 1807. As early as 1807, Belknap began a fifty-year career as an itinerant portrait painter, working in communities across Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. More that 170 portraits have been identified and attributed to Belknap.

Credit Line:

Gift of William W. Upton

People:

McNeil, Nancy M. (1792-1837), Belknap, Zedekiah (1781-1858), Pierce, Franklin (1804-1869), McNeil, Solomon (1782-1862)

Subjects:

McNeil, Nancy Pierce