Object Type: Painting

Medium and Support: oil on canvas

Credit Line: Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of Gay Wilmerding

Accession Number: 2020.16.2

Born in Boxhill, Surrey, England, the sitter (1793–1848) married Capt. Augustus Henry Griswold there in 1820. Her dress and hair appear to date from around that time. Following their union Elizabeth traveled with her husband to make a home on Griswold Point in Old Lyme, where they they raised three children.

This likeness by an unidentified artist illustrates the not-uncommon fact that portraits of husbands and wives were not always painted by the same artist, at the same time. While Capt. Griswold’s portrait is by a sophisticated French painter, Mrs. Griswold’s portrait has a folkier quality evident in the simplified treatment of the fabric, hair, skin, and background. The gendering of the commissions may also reflect differences in how the paintings were displayed—perhaps with hers in a private space and his presented for public consumption. Together, the portraits help tell the tale of this couple, who lived apart during the times that Captain Griswold worked in the packet ship trade.

July 7, 1944, letter on letterhead of William E.S. Griswold, Wyndhurst Farm, Old Lyme, CT, mentions that he bought the portrait that day from the auction of Elizabeth Lansdale Griswold's son, Edward L. Griswold. The letter says that on the back of the painting was "a faded and tattered paper, reading as follows: 'I should like my son Isaac to have my sister's likeness as taken in England a short time before her marriage to Capt. A. H. Griwsold, Lime [sic], Connecticutt [sic]. I am very sorry it is so injured. Isaac thinks it could be taken of [sic] again. It was broke about so by being taken out of the frame. By care Abby.'
'The above was written by Dorothy Landsdale Sawyer and copied by her granddaughter, Jenny Toll Sawyer. July 24, 1926'".