Ruth Henshaw Bascom (1772 - 1848)

Private owner, Ashby, Massachusetts;

Nina Fletcher Little, Essex, Massachusetts;

Sotheby's, New York, Important: Americana: The Bertram K. Little and Nina Fletcher Little Collection, Part I, January 29, 1994, sale 6526, lot 314.

Remi Spriggs, “Living with antiques: An Americana collection in New Jersey,” Magazine Antiques (April 2005), 94-105;

Nancy Brannigan Painter, “Objects of Affection,” New Jersey Monthly (November 2006), 112-7;

Leslie and Peter Warwick, Love At First Sight: Discovering Stories About Folk Art & Antiques Collected by Two Generations & Three Families, (New Jersey: 2022), pp. 251, fig. 422.

New York, Museum of American Folk Art, 1986.

Adeline Ames Andrews (1821-1899), the daughter of Noah and Sophia Green Andrews, was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts on February 20, 1821, the younger of two sisters. During the late 1820s, the Andrews family moved to the neighboring town of Ashby, Massachusetts where the Bascoms lived. Reverend Ezekiel Bascom had been a pastor in Ashby since 1821, and his wife Ruth, rarely did cutouts of children, preferring to do pastel on paper drawings of them but she made a phase one cutout for Adaline. According to Bascom’s diary, Adaline’s portrait was taken twice. One portrait was taken in 1830 when she was nine and a half and another was taken in 1831 when she was a year older. We do not know which of the two portraits of her we have. In Bascom’s diary, it is recorded:

“Friday- calm and pleasant day and eve- Mrs. Noah Andrews and Adeline to dine. Mr. Andrews called. Adeline tarried the night.” (October 29, 1830).

“Saturday...Ann Gates and Adeline Andrews the day & night here – I touched their pictures in evening only having much to do thro the day” (October 30, 1830).

“I began Adeline Andrews (2nd face)...” (June 15, 1831).

Bascom also painted Adeline’s sister and parents whose whereabouts are unknown. Adeline married George Lincoln Adams of Ashby, Massachusetts in 1849. He was a farmer and a “market man”. Their daughter died of consumption at age 20 and their son moved out West.