ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN S. BLUNT | MARTHA NELSON

Marguerite Riordan, Stonington, Connecticut.

John Samuel Blunt was noted as an extraordinary painter of faces. Typical Blunt characteristics evidenced in this painting, include red underpaint which is sometimes allowed to show through a thinly painted background, unusual shades of red and sour yellows, blues and greens, and a consistent greenish tint to the flesh tones.

Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Blunt was the son of Mark Sherburne Blunt, a Portsmouth sea captain and Mary Drown Blunt. He was a member of the seventh generation of Blunt's in New England. Listed in the first Portsmouth directory published in 1821, as "Ornamental and Portrait Painter". In the Portsmouth Journal of April 2, 1825, he proposed opening a drawing and painting school and in the 1827 Portsmouth directory Blunt advertised "Portrait and Miniature Painting, Military Standard do. Sign Painting, Plain and Ornamented, Landscape and Marine Painting, Masonic and Fancy do. Ships Ornaments Gilded and Painted, Oil and Burnish Gilding, Bronzing, &c &c."

On September 12, 1835, the Portsmouth Journal announced his death, “At sea, on board ship Ohio, on his passage from New Orleans to Boston, Mr. John S. Blunt, aged 37, painter of Boston, formerly of this town.” For additional information see Robert Bishop, “John S. Blunt,” Magazine Antiques, November 1977, pp. 964-971 and Deborah M Child, The Sketchbooks of John Samuel Blunt, (Portsmouth, NH: Portsmouth Athenaeum, 2007)