Charles Lyman (American, 1775-1818)

Pair of Portraits: Thaddeus and Elizabeth Leavitt
oil on canvas
each identified and inscribed portrayed by Mr. / Charles Lyman / July 1803, verso
27 1/2 x 24 3/8 inches.

together with a needlework embroidered picture of Kronborg Castle, wrought by Elizabeth Leavitt
Suffield, Hartford County, Connecticut, circa 1806
silk threads with watercolor on silk ground
identified Elizabeth Leavitt. 1806. / A View of Cronberg Castle near Elsineur [sic], eglomise mat
21 x 24 inches.

Thaddeus Leavitt (1750-1813) was a prominent merchant from Suffield, Connecticut, and a notable innovator of the cotton gin. In addition to his successful entrepreneurial endeavors as an importer and exporter, Leavitt also served as a selectman and Justice of the Peace. He joined forces with seven other men from Connecticut to purchase the Western Reserve lands in Ohio from the state government. In that region, Leavitt's descendants were early and important settlers of what later became Trumbull County.

Leavitt wed Elizabeth King (1751-1826) on November 25, 1773, and together, the couple had two children, Thaddeus Leavitt, Jr. and Elizabeth Leavitt Loomis (1788-1865). Elizabeth married Luther Loomis (1783-1868), a merchant from New York, in Hartford on January 10, 1810.

Kronborg, a Northern Renaissance castle in Helsingør, Denmark, is perhaps most famous as the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which it was called "Elsinore," an anglicized name of the town. Though the mercantile interests of Thaddeus Leavitt extended as far as Spain and Portugal, the play likely inspired this picture, rather than an in-person encounter.