Joanna

Written as part of Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge. This week’s topic: Preservation

Some years ago, my husband found a canvas in the attic of his childhood home.  It was rolled up and torn, but it was a painting of a rather imposing lady in a tall hat.  His parents explained that it was his 3G grandmother, Joanna Turner Whitman of Pembroke, Mass (1771-1849), and that he, my husband, had been named after her son, Thomas Turner Whitman.  

The painting had a slash in it which according to a memoir by another relative was made by an angry maid servant, and perhaps explains why the painting had been taken out of its frame.  As for the badly hanging pendant, we have no idea except to speculate it was added by someone other than the original painter.

Tom took it to a local (Litchfield CT) antique dealer, who exclaimed on seeing it “That’s a Hathaway.”  We have never been able to establish this, but had it repaired and reframed anyway.  

Joanna Turner Whitman of Pembroke, Mass (1771-1849)

Rufus Hathaway (1770–1822) was a painter of portraits in the Duxbury area of southern Massachusetts.  Joanna lived in nearby Pembroke. Several of his portraits are held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Colonial Williamsburg etc. and there may be a partner in the form of her husband, Deacon Seth Whitman of Pembroke, (1782-1859)We have not been able to establish that Hathaway painted Joanna, but Joanna’s unsmiling face has overseen our family gatherings for decades.