Ammi Phillips portrait boy
Ammi Phillips: Young Boy in Red with White Dog
Attributed to Ammi Phillips (1788-1865), Troy, New York
c. 1815
Oil on canvas
29 1/4" x 24 1/4"; in a contemporary period appropriate frame, 33 1/4" x 28 1/4"
Portrait of Phillip Titus Heartt (1806-1879). A paper label previously attached to the reverse reads: "Phillip Titus Heartt son of Phillip Heartt and Deidamia Gazely. Born at 'Mount Ida' Troy, March 20, 1807 [sic] died October 13, 1879 This portrait painted in 1815 at eight year [sic] of age".
Provenance: William Griscom, Philadelphia; Peter H. Davidson & Co., New York; Francis Frost; Dean H. and Elizabeth E. Leith, Troy, NY; Bill Clerk, Chatham, NY; Olde Hope Antiques, Inc.; Private CA Collection.
Literature: Revisiting Ammi Phillips: Fifty Years of American Portraiture, p. 67; Allaway, My People: The Works of Ammi Phillips (2022), Vol. I, p. 107, no. 253 and Vol. II, p. 31.
Phillip was the son of Philip Heartt and Deidamia Gazlay. He married Sarah Jerusha Pierson (1816-1866) in 1839. Both Philip and Sarah are buried in Bloomfield Cemetery, New Jersey. According to his obituary, Heartt was a member of the hardware firm Jonas C. Heartt & Brothers and was United States consul to Glasgow under President Franklin Pierce. Heartt was an active fireman in Troy and a one-time candidate for major of the city.