Painting

Title:

Sarah Melendy

Object Name:

Painting

Object ID:

2021.020.09

Creator:

Badger, Thomas (1792-1868)Artist

Place of Origin:

Amherst, NH

Date:

circa 1825

Description:

Miniature portrait of Sarah Melendy (1792-1883), by Thomas Badger (1792-1868). Watercolor on paper. Bust-length portrait of young woman with curled brown hair, wearing light green dress and lace collar. Inscribed on wood backing board: "Sarah Melendy / Painted by / Thomas Badger". Period gilded frame, with églomisé painted glass in black and gold.

Material:

Paper

Dimensions:

H-4.5 W-3.5 inches

Provenance:

Three Melendy brothers came from England to Massachusetts prior to 1729 and settled in Essex County. One of the brothers, William Melendy, settled in Medford and moved to Reading after his marriage in 1728. His grandson, William Melendy (1756-1814), married Abigail Badger (1762-1834) of Reading in 1780 and moved to Amherst, NH. A shoemaker, William Melendy and his brother Nathaniel became brickmakers, whose bricks were used in the construction of the bank buildings and houses in the town. They had ten children; the sixth, Rebecca, born 1795, married the artist Thomas Badger (1792-1868) and the tenth, Elizabeth Welch (1802-1892), married Barnabas B. David (1802-1883), a Boston whip manufacturer in 1825. Barnabas David formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, Samuel B. Melendy, in 1830 manufacturing whips in Amherst, which afterward became their home. The business continued in Amherst through the 1880s. Their descendants, members of the Carey family, lived in the David family house in Amherst until the late 20th century.

Artist, portrait painter, and lithographer Thomas Badger, born in South Reading, MA, in 1792, was the son of Benjamin Badger and Naomi Emerson. Badger studied with John Ritto Penniman and began painting portraits and miniatures in Boston in 1814. For more than thirty years, Badger also made frequent trips through eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and coastal Maine painting portraits. In 1818 he married his cousin, Rebecca Melendy (1795-1852) of Amherst, the daughter of his cousin, Abigail Badger and William Melendy. A frequent guest in the Melendy home, and occasional resident of Amherst, Badger painted portraits of several members of the family through his death in 1868.

Credit Line:

Gift of Elizabeth B. Carey, Ellison M. Carey, and Charles D. Carey III

People:

Badger, Thomas (1792-1868), Melendy, Sarah (1792-1883)

Subjects:

Melendy, Sarah