Lot 11 Rare and Important Wax Profile of Richard Dirck Lush, Deputy Mustermaster for the Third Regiment of the New York Line, By Johann Christian Rauschner, New York, circa 1800

Depicting Lush in profile, brown coat, white waistcoat and cravat. The figure in its original circular turned black wood frame; the reverse with Lush’s obituary, cut from the Manlius newspaper of 1817.

Mrs. Henry Ware, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1929

Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, lent by Mrs. Henry Ware

Bolton, American Wax Portraits, 1929, p.54

Richard Dirck Lush (1747-1817) investor, real estate speculator, and Albany County Clerk, was believed to have been a son of Manhattan privateer William Lush. He and his brother, Stephen were active in the Revolutionary War; Stephen as ADC to General Clinton, and Richard as Deputy State Agent for Albany County, and Deputy Mustermaster for the Third Regiment of the New York Line. In 1780, Lush married Lyntje Fonda. They had seven children, all baptized in the Albany Dutch Church where Lush was an officer. Their home was an impressive double house at 62 (now 320) Market Street. With his father-in-law, Jelles Fonda, Governor George Clinton and Signer General William Floyd, Lush was a partner in a land patent which included Oneida. Later Lush, who also invested in waterfront properties at the northern border of Albany, encouraged and financed the settlement of Manlius. In 1790, Lush was appointed Albany County Clerk, a post he held until 1808. In 1811, he became Albany County Surrogate.

Johann Christian Rauschner (1760-?), certainly the most important wax artist in American during the first decades of the 19th century, Rauschner was the son of a German wax modeller. When he moved from Frankfurt to New York in 1799, Rauschner changed his name to John in an effort to attract American patrons. Though maintaining a New York City address from 1799 to 1808, Rauschner traveled from New Hampshire to South Carolina in search of sitters. Rauschner was recorded as having worked in Boston and Salem in 1809 and 1810, as well as Plymouth, Beverly and West Brookfield, Massachusetts, Hartford, Connecticut, Albany, Manlius, Kip's Bay, New York, Amwell and Mount Holly, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Dover, Delaware, Bladensburg, Maryland and Virginia. Rauschner used colored wax, painting in only the features, and then set his portraits on glass. His enchanting portaits are now rare. The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Peabody Essex Museum hold large collections. Additionally, Rauschner's work may be seen at the Albany Institute, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the New-York Historical Society, the West Point Museum and The White House.