Ralph Earl 1751 - 1801

Painted in New Milford, Connecticut. Signed and dated R. Earl Pinxt 1796 lower left on both portraits; portrait of Mr. Lane does not appear to retain original frame; portrait of Mrs. Lane appears to retain original frame; both portraits retain their original stretchers.

Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1976  (Mrs. Apphia Lane);
Descended in the family of the sitters to Irvin and Anita Schorsch.

New York, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1945-1976;
Hartford, Connecticut, organized by the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic; traveling:
Washington, D.C., The National Portrait Gallery, November 1, 1991 – January 1, 1992;
Hartford, Connecticut, The Wadsworth Athenaeum, February 2-April 5, 1992;
Fort Worth, Texas, The Amon Carter Museum, May 16-July 12, 1992.

The Arts and Antiques Weekly, January 14, 1977, p. 45.
Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 59, figs. I-37, I-38; and cats. 51, 52; chapter 3.

Both portraits have been cleaned, re-lined, and re-stretched. A heavy reflective varnish covers the surface on both. Him: Scattered in-painting in facial area including: the forehead between the brows, the bridge of the nose, and on both cheeks. Some areas of minor in-painting across the shoulders and in background. Her: Significant areas of in-painting overall, in particular: in area of forehead, around the nose, cheek, and chin. Scattered in-painting on the bodice and lower portion of hair, the lower portion of sitter's skirt, and scumbled in-painting along the stretcher line and background.
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The portraits of Jared and Apphia Lane were one of a number commissions that Earl received upon his return to New Milford, Connecticut in 1796. The subjects are Jared Lane (1745-1818) – a nurseryman and farmer and his wife, Apphia Ruggles Lane (1755-1818) – a daughter of Lazarus (1730-1797) and Hannah Bostwick (1736-1812) Ruggles (see lot 922). The commission included a landscape view of his newly constructed house in the Still River Neck district of New Milford.  Through the window in Mr. Lane’s portrait, Earl makes reference to Lane’s grove of Lombardy poplar trees – a tree that he introduced in America for use as an ornamental shade tree.¹

In an account recorded in Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser’s Ralph Earl, The Face of the Young Republic:

 "...while Earl completed these portraits, he and his wife boarded with Jared’s father-in-law, Lazarus Ruggles… Jared Lane’s detailed account books provide an illuminating information of Earl’s life as an itinerant artist, his drinking problem and his working methods."²

In addition to paying his father-in-law board for the artist and his wife, paying for the pair of portraits and the landscape view of the Lane homestead, Jared recorded extra expenses including: washing of clothes, providing coffee, and “Spirits and Rum” – which Earl required while working. While working on Apphia’s portrait, he consumed "one gallon and two quarts of spirits and three pints of rum, while painting Jared’s portrait, one gallon of spirits."³

1. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Ralph Earl, The Face of the Young Republic (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1991), p. 202.
2. Ibid., pp. 202-204.
3. Ibid., p. 203.