Portrait of Ellen Harper Walters

Ellen Walters (1822-1862), the wife of William T. Walters, was the daughter of a prosperous Philadelphia merchant. She died at the age of 40, leaving her husband with two children to raise: Henry (1848-1931) and Jennie (1853-1922). To paint this miniature 35 years after Ellen's death, the artist worked from a daguerreotype made in 1846, the year of her marriage.

William Jacob Baer was born in Cincinnati in 1860, where he was trained in lithography. In 1880 he traveled to Munich to study drawing and painting at the Royal Academy. When he returned to the United States, he lived in New Jersey where he taught drawing and painting at Princeton University. In 1893 he moved to New York and where he first painted portrait miniatures; by 1894 he had given up easel painting all together to focus exclusively on this genre. He helped found the American Society of Miniature Painters, and is considered instrumental in the revival of miniature at the end of the 19th century. Baer exhibited both nationally and internationally, at the Exposition Universelle (1900), Pan-American Exposition (1901), Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904), and the Panama-Pacific Exposition (1915), where he work was well received. He seems to have found particular success with Henry Walters and his relatives. The Walters Art Museum holds six works on ivory by the artist.

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Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Owned by Mrs. Frederick B. Adams [1]; given to Walters Art Museum, 1972.

[1] Granddaughter of Ellen Harper Walters. It is likely this object passed to Mrs. Adams by inheritance.