Object of the Week: Cornelia Adeline Dill Lee

Unknown artist, Cornelia Adeline Dill Lee, 1847, Oil on canvas
Gift of Gwynne Chrysler Garbisch McDevitt in memory of Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 81.178

Spring is wedding season; while many happy celebrations have been curtailed this year, we can still celebrate the nuptials of Cornelia Adeline Dill Lee. She married 173 years ago this week on May 5, 1847. Her portrait, created on the occasion of her marriage, offers a striking vision of the twenty-two-year-old upstate New York native—full of determination and vigor as she shifts into a new chapter of life.

Most of the documented details of Cornelia’s life qualify more as genealogy than biography. She was born on September 23, 1824 in Auburn, New York to Samuel Dill and Deborah Field Dill. Cornelia’s father was a politician and army officer who served as commander of the fort at Sackets Harbor, New York, an important strategic installation and navy yard located on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. In 1847, Cornelia wed William H. Lee; he made a living as a grocer and pomologist, an expert in growing and cultivating fruits. The pair settled in Camillus and later Rochester, New York and raised three children—two sons and a daughter. William died in 1864, but the date of Cornelia’s passing is not recorded.

With scant historical details of Cornelia’s life, her portrait survives as the most significant record of her experiences and character. Dated 1847, the year of her marriage, it captures a young woman of great certitude and refined appearance. The large and imposing canvas portrays the sitter at life-size, dressed in a somber riding outfit and resplendent bonnet topped by a cascading feather. Her right hand, clad in a leather glove, holds the reins to a dappled grey horse. In her other hand, she grasps a glove and riding crop. Her piercing eyes, a stylistic hallmark common to many itinerant portraitists during this period, render her with a sober intensity that belies her young age. The impeccable details of her clothing indicate a woman of great style and flair, while her easy command of the rearing horse conveys her skill in horsemanship.

The unknown artist who created this portrait may have been a traveling portraitist or maintained a studio in one of several upstate New York population centers like Rochester or Syracuse. The dramatic landscape behind Cornelia is reminiscent of the Adirondacks (apart from the cragginess of the mountains), a region just beginning to grow in popularity as a tourist destination. In any event, the landscape was probably painted on a studio backdrop or contrived by the artist rather than drawn from nature. The horse, too, was likely a studio prop—though the artist was able to draw upon some fairly sophisticated art historical references in the depiction of Cornelia restraining the rearing horse. The motif derives from a pair of well-known classical statues known as the Horse Tamers, a theme later taken up by a host of artists from Théodore Géricault to Rosa Bonheur—though surely none of these horse tamers could pull off feathered plumage with such flair.

This portrait was given to the Chrysler Museum by Gwynne Chrysler Garbisch McDevitt in memory of her mother Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, who along with her husband Edgar William Garbisch formed one of the greatest collections of American Folk Art. The Garbisch’s ultimately donated their massive collection to numerous museums including the Chrysler, ensuring that folk art remained preserved and accessible to people throughout the country. Bernice Chrysler Garbisch— the sister of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.—was an inveterate collector who, as a young woman, worked as a Red Cross nurse’s aid in Army hospitals and later at New York hospitals. She had a flair for fashion and was said to be particularly fond of feather trim, a clear affinity with Cornelia’s feathery blue plume. For the past year, Cornelia’s portrait has hung in the folk art gallery overlooking the Chrysler’s Huber Court, bearing witness to the dozens of weddings that have taken place there—happy celebrations that can’t return soon enough.

–Corey Piper, PhD, Brock Curator of American Art