Micah Williams Portrait Artist - Icompendium

cAtAlogue no. 18
Woman of the Smalley Family
Pastel on paper
Perth Amboy, Middlesex County,
New Jersey, dated 4 October 1818
29 x 24 5 ⁄8 inches
Collection of Edward King, Jr.
This is one of the artist’s simpler
likenesses and depicts a young woman
of about twenty, neatly and simply
dressed. Her hair was arranged in a
fashionable but restrained style, with a
small curved tortoiseshell comb holding
the coil of hair atop her head. Simple
clusters of short curls were held in place
on either side of her temples by a pair of
flat combs. Williams used a soft, midtoned
blue for the peaceful background, echoing
the sitter’s lovely blue eyes.
An inscription on the back of the
frame reads “Perth Amboy Oct. 4, 1818.”
The woman in this portrait is not
specifically identified, but was one of a
larger group of Smalley family portraits
owned by Connecticut antiques dealer
Florene Maine.
During the artist’s most active period
in Monmouth County, between 1819
and 1821, Williams produced at least
four pastel portraits of Smalley family
members. These four images appeared
in a 1976 advertisement in Antiques
magazine, but their current whereabouts
are unknown. (1) The Smalleys were
related through marriage to many of the
Smocks, Schencks, and Conovers and
were part of the extensive “family web”
which provided the artist with continued
and profitable patronage.
1. Florene Maine, advertisement. Antiques, July 1976: 11.
56 Micah Williams: Portrait Artist Micah Williams: Portrait Artist 57