William Garle Browne, “Zachary Taylor at Walnut Springs,” 1847, National Portrait Gallery, Washington
According to the Fenimore Art Museum’s take on William Matthew Prior, about whom I recently wrote for the Wall Street Journal, that 19th-century American folk portraitist had invented the business strategy of sliding-scale prices, based on the amount of time and detail that he lavished (or didn’t) on creating a particular likeness for a middle- or working-class sitter. Other artists, according to the Fenimore’s president, Paul D’Ambrosio, “would do a half-length cheaper than a full length or do the background a little less involved, but he [Prior] took it to its logical conclusion,” by radically adjusting his style according to his clients’ ability to pay.
But CultureGrrl reader Frank Robertson of Boise, Idaho, responding to Cooperstown Coup: My WSJ Piece on the Fenimore Museum’s “William Matthew Prior”, says that his own portraitist-ancestor, working in America’s South, adopted the same business strategy more or less simultaneously with Prior (who worked in New England):
I enjoyed very much reading your story about William Matthew Prior. I have a similar story to tell: My great-grandfather, William Garle Browne, was an itinerant portrait painter who was born in England in 1823, came to New York in 1837, and worked in New York and the south from about 1840 until his death in 1894.
Like Prior, he adjusted the price and the quality of his work to fit what the buyer could afford. Some of his paintings show a great deal of care and time taken in the work; others were clearly done quickly, with little detail. I have a classified newspaper advertisement telling of the options available to clients.
In the spring of 1847, he was hired by the publisher of a Richmond newspaper to go to Mexico, find General Zachary Taylor and “take a likeness of him and bring the painting back to the States.” The Whig political party wanted to run General Taylor for president, but no one knew what he looked like. Browne got to Monterey, found General Taylor, spent several months painting the general and his staff and brought the paintings back to show in Richmond, Washington and New York. [See painting, above, from the National Portrait Gallery.]
He also painted a number of the Confederate generals. These paintings can be found at various locations in Richmond. One of his best was of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, painted posthumously from a small Mathew Brady photograph. Over time he painted five portraits of the General, the finest of which hangs in the Stonewall Jackson House, Lexington, VA:
William Garle Browne, “General Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson,” 1869, Stonewall Jackson HouseBut while he painted many notables, far more of his painting were like those of William Matthew Prior—paintings of fathers, mothers and children. They can still be seen today on the walls of many homes in Virginia and the Carolinas.
An extensive list of Browne’s works can be found in the National Portrait Gallery’s online catalogue of American portraits.
NOTE: The NPG lists the artist as William Garl Browne Jr. (rather than William Garle Browne) and says he was born in 1823 (not 1821). But Robertson expressed confidence that his own family’s records and research are accurate.