RUTH HENSHAW BASCOM (1772-1848)

Thomas Cushing Burr, age ten
Ashby, Massachusetts, February 13, 1834
Pastel and pencil on cut paper, mounted on blue-streaked paper; 16 ½ x 12 ½ inches, in a period painted frame.

Bascom noted this portrait in her diary: “On February 13, 1834, a day of 20-degree temperature, ‘…Thos. Cushing Burr came early to be sketched…’”  It descended to the sitter’s great-grandson, Richard M. Bronson (1919–2003) of Tacoma, Washington, and was published in Lois S. Avigad, “Ruth Henshaw Bascom: A Youthful Viewpoint,” The Clarion, Fall 1987, p. 36.