Pair of Portraits, Sea Captain and Wife
Massachusetts, ca. 1840.
Oil on canvas.
27” x 21”, 32 ¼” x 26 ½” with frame.

Great condition, lined in the 1960’s, very minimal in-painting in upper background areas. Housed in wonderful period stenciled frames, appear to be original.

Provenance: Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Tillou, Illustrated in Nineteenth-Century Folk Painting: Our Spirited National Heritage, pl. 95 and 96, 1972.

Brother-in-law to William M. Prior, Hamblen worked in Portland, Maine in the late 1830’s. He later moved to Boston around 1840 where he painted portraits in the Prior style. His portraits are often difficult to distinguish from those of Prior.