Friday

Lalanne, Mary Elizabeth - portrait of Catharine Putnam Brinley

A kind visitor has allowed me to display a signed miniature portrait by a rare artist, Mary Elizabeth Lalanne (1815-1836). Judging by the portrait showing here, her early death at age 21 deprived history and the art world of a very fine artist.

The visitor believes the portrait is of one of his ancestors, Catharine Putnam Brinley who is the granddaughter of Israel Putnam and wife of George Brinley formally of Boston and Hartford Conn.

The miniature is signed on the right "M E Lalanne". There is a miniature, fig 444, in the Metropolitan Catalogue listed under the name Miss Leland, which is suggested as perhaps being by her, but the catalogue dates that to c1840, which is after the death of Mary Lalanne.

Little has been written about Mary Lalanne, so I have done a little research. She is referred to in the Metropolitan Catalogue, which notes that she was a miniaturist of Boston who exhibited three pieces at the Boston Athenaeum in 1833 and married Dr Horace Kimball.

Their marriage record appears at  HORACE KIMBALL - International Genealogical Index / NA
Gender: Male Marriage: 04 JUL 1835 Newburyport, Essex, Massachusetts.

A kind lady has posted some detailed information about her on the Internet;
"Hello Everyone:
My kinswoman, Mary Elizabeth LALANNE, was born in 1815 in Quebec, sister to
my 2nd great grandmother Caroline Veronique LALANNE. In 1835 Mary Elizabeth
married Dr. Horace KIMBALL, who was graduated M. D. from the Harvard
Medical School in 1834, studied dentistry, and went to New York in 1836,
where he became a noted dentist. He was among the first to use ether in
dental operations. He lived in Boston, Mass., Clyde and New York City, N.
Y., Orange and Plainfield, N. J.

Unfortunately, my Mary Elizabeth died in 1836, probably in childbirth.
Horace went on to marry three more times and produced 8 children by the
second wife, and one each by the third and fourth wives.

My curiosity was aroused by this family, at first because Horace named his
fifth son Arthur Lalanne KIMBALL, obviously after his first wife's beloved
brother, Arthur John George LALANNE. I had been searching long and hard for
the fate of Arthur J.G. LALANNE and just yesterday found, thanks to
Genealogy Bank , a note about his untimely death (perhaps of TB) in 1847 at
age 27.

Looking further into facts about Horace KIMBALL's family I found through
Ancestry several notes indicating that his second wife, Mary Davenport
FISHER, after producing those eight children (the last one in 1860) had died
on 9 Oct 1865 in MATABELELAND NORTH, ZIMBABWE. It seems rather unusual
for a middle-aged American matron to die just after the American Civil War
IN AFRICA.

Does anyone here have this KIMBALL family in his or her database? This maybe
an error carried over from one member to another in Ancestry, or, again, it
may indeed be true. If so, I am curious for more details. What was she doing
in Africa, for heavens' sake?

Elizabeth Engle"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Fisher Genealogy by Philip A. Fisher in 1898, page 299, says that Mary Davenport Fisher who married Horace Kimball died at New York City on Oct. 9, 1865. Don't know where Zimbabwe came from! Sincerely, Becky Thompson (great-granddaughter of a Fisher)