William Page and Page family papers, 1815-1947, bulk 1843-1892

Collection Information

Size: 11.06 linear ft.

Summary: The papers of the painter William Page and the Page family measure 11.06 linear feet and date from 1815 to 1947, with the bulk of papers dating from 1843 to 1892. Papers contain records related to the life and career of William Page, president of the National Academy of Design from 1871 to 1873 and prominent portraitist and art theorist of his day. Also found are records related to his wife's career as a writer and records documenting their personal lives and the lives of their family members. Types of documents found include personal documents and artifacts, correspondence, essays, lectures, diaries, poems, notes and notebooks, financial records, legal records, published works, clippings, catalogs, photographs, and artwork.

Biographical/Historical Note

William Page (1811-1885) was a portrait and figure painter in New York. Page studied with the painter/engraver James Herring in 1825 and under Samuel F.B. Morse, at the National Academy of Design in 1826, the year it was formed. Page was married three times; the first two, to Lavinia Twibill and Sara A. Dougherty respectively, ended in divorce. He had three daughters with his first wife. His third wife was Sophia Candace Stevens Hitchcock, daughter of Henry Stevens, with whom he had six children. The couple stayed in Rome until 1860. Sophia's three brothers, all businessmen, helped to promote Page's artwork in Europe and America. His paintings of this period include several Venus subjects, one of which was championed by his most loyal patrons, who raised $3000 by subscription to buy the painting for the Boston Athenaeum. A later Venus painting was rejected from the Paris salon for indecency, a controversy that was later leveraged for publicity in a touring exhibition in the United States. Page worked on series of portraits of Civil War heroes. Photographs played a consistent part in Page's technique of portraiture, and he is known to have worked with the photographer Matthew Brady. Page was elected the president of the National Academy of Design, a post he held until 1873. He completed a portrait of General Grant, an idealized portrait of the president based on early photographs and Charles Sumner. He also became interested in portraiture of William Shakespeare around this time, and his studies resulted in a book, Shakespeare's Portraits, a bust based on existing portraiture, and a full-length portrait entitled "Shakespeare Reading," based on Page's measurements of a supposed death mask in Darmstadt, Germany, which he went to inspect in 1874. A series of collapses in the 1870s left him incapacitated until his death in 1885.

Provenance

A portion of the collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Mrs. Lesslie S. (Pauline Page) Howell, William Page's grandaughter, in 1963. William S. Page, Pauline Page Howell's nephew, donated additional papers in 1964 and 1973. Mrs. Howell's son, William Page Howell, donated material in 1980. Letters of Charles F. Briggs to James Russell Lowell (Series 2.2) were a part of Pauline Page Howell's 1963 donation to the Archives of American Art. They had been given to Mrs. Howell by Charlotte Briggs, daughter of Charles F. Briggs, because of her father's lifelong friendship with William Page. Letters from Lowell to Briggs are in the James Russell Lowell papers in Houghton Library at Harvard University.

Related Materials

Pauline Page Howell and William S. Page loaned a group of letters to the Archives in 1964 which were microfilmed on reel 1091 and then returned to the lenders. These include: letters to Page from Charles F. Briggs, 1875; Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, 1854-1855; Lydia Maria Child; R. S. Chilton, 1855; Charlotte Cushman, 1855-1859; [John W.?] Field, 1856; James Russell Lowell, 1842-1889; Levi and Tamer Page, 1828; and one unidentified letter, 1877, and letters from Charles A. Dana to a Mrs. Hitchcock, 1854-1855, and from Horace E. Scudder to George S. Page, 1899. This material is not described in the container listing of the finding aid.

Funding

Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Location of Originals

• Reel 1091: Originals returned to William S. Page and Mrs. Pauline Page Howell after microfilming.