c. 1825
Oil on canvas, 32 x 27”
Unsigned

A native of Colebrook, Connecticut, Phillips is arguably the leading folk painter of 19th-century America. For years some 500 portraits were attributed to one of two Connecticut limners or painters. A signed work was discovered in 1958, and the genealogical research and stylistic analysis that followed led to the conclusion that Phillips was the Border Limner in the early years of his career and the Kent Limner in his later phase.

This portrait is from a period when Phillips was modeling faces with uncompromising clarity and highlighting dark clothes with a few striking decorations. He painted at least two other women wearing the bonnet that so smartly sets off this lady’s chiseled features.