ATTRIBUTED TO MICAH WILLIAMS | PAIR OF PORTRAITS: JOHN BLACKWELL AND MARY CAFFERTY BLACKWELL

John Blackwell (1787-1865), the son of a yeoman and distiller who grew up on a farm in South Brunswick Township, New Jersey, married Mary Cafferty (1800-1891) and had three children, John Augustus (b. 1819) Henry, and Caroline. The pair of portraits of the young Blackwells were likely commissioned as a wedding present, given that Mary is portrayed wearing the rose gold earrings that she wore on her wedding day and that are included in this lot.

The Brunswick, New Jersey artist, Micah Williams, had a very interesting and thrifty process for preparing his artworks. The artist would back his pastels with newspaper at the time of creation and then stretch them over a white pine strainer; a method that would allow him to prop his work against furniture rather than having to transport an easel around the State. The portrait of John Blackewell has a fragment of old newspaper visible on verso that states "Trenton Federalist, Monday, June 27^th 1814. 4^th of July Convention. Monmouth County." This newspaper is slightly older than the pastel itself, given that Micah Williams was just being released from Middlesex County jail as an insolvent debtor in the spring of 1815. Quickly rebuilding his life as an itinerant portrait artist upon his release, he worked in Middlesex, Monmouth, Bergen, Somerset and Essex counties, and produced over sixty portraits of Monmouth County residents between 1818 and 1821. These portraits were likely made during that time, probably before their first son was born in 1819.