NEHEMIAH PARTRIDGE 1683-c.1737
Portrait of Catherine Ten Broeck, 1719
Oil on canvas, 32 X 48" (81.28 x 121.92 cm.)
Unsigned
Gift of Josephine Butler Ford Agler, 977-0-167

Catherine Ten Broeck (1715-1801) has been identified as the subject of the portrait formerly known as Young Girl With Rose and Bird, the earliest painting in the Butler Institute's collection. It was presented to the Butler Institute by her great-great-great granddaughter, Josephine Butler Ford Agler, maternal granddaughter of Joseph G. Butler, Jr. The painting descended in the family of the donor's father, Edward L. Ford (1856-1927) of Albany, New York.
The Fords were New Englanders who settled in the upper Hudson Valley of New York during the last quarter of the eighteenth century.3 By the early 1800s, Thomas Walker Ford (1770/71-1846) was established in Albany as a successful dry goods merchant. On June 10, 1798, Thomas married Catherine Ten Broeck's granddaughter, Renette McCarty Willard (1778/79-1828) of Stillwater, New York. Renette's parents were Elias Willard (1756-1827), a physician from Boston, and Catherine (1755-1827), daughter of John (1709-1791) and Catherine Ten Broeck Livingston. Three sons and two daughters were born to the Thomas Walker Fords including John Willard Ford (1805-1869), an Albany attorney and insurance executive who married Frances Deeming Rudd (1825-1886). Their son Edward, an engineer in the iron and steel industry, moved to Youngstown in the 1880s and married Blanche Butler (1867-1913), the oldest daughter of his employer, Joseph G. Butler, Jr. This brief genealogy traces the provenance of the painting through six generations of the subject's family.
The portrait of Catherine Ten Broeck can be assigned to a body of work attributed by Mary Black to Nehemiah Partridge (1683-c. 1737), an itinerant portrait painter from New Hampshire, who began his career about 1713 in Boston as a japanner and purveyor of art supplieS. Later he moved to New York and, in 1718, was entered in the city's registry of freemen as a limner. That same year Partridge accepted a portrait commission in Albany, where he remained for about three years, painting over fifty portraits, twenty-five of which are marked with his distinctive red "Aetats Sua" inscription, recording the age of the sitter and the year the painting was completed. Catherine's portrait, inscribed: "Aetats Sua/3 years/1719" reflects Partridge's style of quick, prominent brush strokes with a palette of black, brown, blue, and rust. The sketchily painted background, her stiff and formal pose, based on a mezzotint source, and the unusual method of depicting the sitter's eyes as slightly narrowed by a faint smile, are all techniques associated with Partridge's work. The artist painted at least six other Ten Broeck family members during his Albany sojourn, including Catherine's sister Christina (1720, Collection of Albany Institute of History and Art) and father Dirck Wessels Ten Broeck (c. 1720, private collection). Dirck, a characteristic Partridge patron, was a prominent Albany citizen and member of a notable Dutch faMily.
Catherine, the eldest child of Margarita Cuyler (1692-1783) and Dirck Wessels Ten Broeck (16861751), was born September 1, 1715 in Albany. At the age of twenty-four she married John Livingston, son of Margarita Schuyler (1682-?) and Robert Livingston (c.1683-1725). Her husband's great uncle, Robert Livingston (1654-1728), Lord of Livingston Manor and one of the richest and most politically powerful men in New York, also posed for Partridge (1718, private collection). Catherine's husband was engaged in trade between New York City and Montreal, Canada. At least three of the couple's children were baptized in New York and the same number were married in Montreal. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, the Livingstons returned to Stillwater, New York, where each had inherited portions of the Saratoga Patent. Upon John's death in 1791, Catherine moved back to Albany, where she died at the home of her daughter on April 6 1801.

MARY ALICE MACKAY