American Furniture, Folk & Decorative Arts

Provenance:

By descent in the sitter's family to the present owner.

Family tradition and publication history has long identified the sitter of this portrait miniature to be Philip Moses Russel. A commemorative work, the surgeon's saw kit, canon, and the so-called "Cowpen's" or "3rd Maryland" American flag, are shown in the background. The uniform and sitter's hairstyle suggests that the work dates from 1800 to 1820. The missing right hand may have been an artistic convention of the time--symbolizing a noble, dignified and sophisticated persona. It is interesting to note that Russel's son, Moses Milton Russel, served as an American consul to Riga, Lithuania, then part of Russia from 1817-1834.

Publication History:

Abraham J. Karp, editor, The Jews in America: A Treasury of Art and Literature (1994), color plate 5, pg. 36.

A copy of above accompanies lot.

Note:

Philip Moses Russel was born in Portsmouth, England, emigrating to Pennsylvania as a young man. Working as a merchant in Germantown, Russel enlisted in the Continental Army, November 17, 1776. With no recorded medical training, he served as Surgeon's Mate at the Battle of Brandywine, and attached to the 2nd Regiment of the Virginia Line, at Valley Forge during the harsh winter of 1777-1778. Russel became ill and was forced to leave service in 1778.

Russel returned to Philadelphia and in 1780 married Esther Mordecai (1762-1846), daughter of the celebrated Rabbi Mordecai Moses Mordecai (1727-1809) and his wife, Zipporah De Lyon of Baltimore.

Russel and his wife relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, then Richmond, Virginia and finally returned to Philadelphia in 1812. The couple had 10 children. During the family's moves, Russel's military documents were lost. After Philip Moses Russel's death, Esther Russel applied to receive her husband's military pension. The process took years, and in 1847, their son, Moses M. Russel, attorney and Conveyancer of the City of Philadelphia wrote, "the only surviving son of the late Philip M Russell of the said City a Surgeon's mate in the Revolutionary War, does depose and say that about the year 1809, 10 and 11 he saw and repeatedly read to his Brothers and Sisters a certificate signed by General George Washington dated West Point August 1780 the day of the month he cannot call to mind which set forth his services from the time the Army left Valley Forge 1777 up to its taking Post at West Point which stated that Doctor Russell served in the Division of the Army immediately under his command with honor to himself and his country and he with pleasure bore testimony to his assiduous attention to the sick and wounded as well as his cool and collected deportment in Battle, and expressed his regret of the causes which compelled him to leave the Army, the failure of his hearing and sight, which deponent has the words deeply impressed upon his memory by perusing it so often as an invaluable memento from the Father of his Country to his revered Parent, that which was unfortunately lost with other valuable documents relating to the Revolution on his Father's removal in 1812 from Richmond Virginia to this City, which this deponent fully believes would at once establish his mother's claim to the whole of his Father's pension."

Russel's obituary published, August 13, 1830, pg. 3 in Paulson's American Daily Advertiser, records, "Departed this life Tuesday evening at a quarter past eleven o'clock at his residence in the Northern Liberties, Philip M. Russell, esq. At the advanced age of ninety years, a man who served his country with fidelity and honor as an officer during the whole of the Revolutionary War, and discharged since then all the duties of a private citizen with an exemplary exactness. Charitable without ostentation, disinterested in his friendships and pious without bigotry, he has left to a large posterity, consisting of ten children and 30 grandchildren an example which should ever be their pride and endeavour to follow. Well may it be applied to him ---- 'An honest man's the noblest work of God.'"

Russel and his wife are buried at The Mikveh Israel Cemetery, the oldest Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. Philip Moses Russel is an accepted Ancestor of The Daughters of the American Revolution and The Sons of the American Revolution.