American Furniture, Folk & Decorative Arts

Portraits of Elizabeth Breckinridge Meredith and Mr. James Breckinridge
watercolor on paper
each signed Dearborn delin
Sight of larger 5 3/8 x 4 inches.
Sight of smaller 4 5/8 x 3 1/2 inches.

Elizabeth Meredith was born in 1766 and died in 1838. Her husband, Major Samuel Meredith III lived from 1765-1825. Both passed away in Fayette County, Kentucky. Elizabeth's brother James (1763-1833) and his wife, Ann Seldon (1770-1843), had seven children including a son, James, who lived from 1801 to 1823. There is no evidence that James lived outside of Virginia and in any case would have been younger than the sitter when this portrait was made. It is likely another member of the Meredith family. Elizabeth and Samuel's daughter, Letitia (1790-1868), and her husband Major William S. Dallam, are the subjects of another pair of portraits by Dearborn in MESDA's collection.

Samuel Dearborn began his career in Boston, but eventually moved west, working in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky as one of the earliest portraitists working west of the Appalachian mountains. He was working in the Lexington and Frankfort area roughly between 1809 and 1811 when he was forced to flee after killing a fellow boarder at his residence.