Anson Dickinson was an American painter of miniature portraits who achieved fame during his lifetime, producing a very large number of works,
but who is now largely forgotten.
Anson Dickinson by Edward Malbone, July 1804
Edward Livingston c, 1827
George Washington - 1772 original by Charles Willson Peale
Portrait of Epaphroditus Champion in 1825
Litchfield Female Academy
The Litchfield Female Academy in Litchfield, Connecticut, founded in 1792 by Sarah Pierce, was one of the most important institutions of female education in the United States. During the 30 years after its opening the school enrolled more than 2,000 students from 17 states and territories of the new republic, as well as Canada and the West Indies. Some 1,848 students known to have attended the school have been identified through school lists, diaries and journals, correspondence, as well as art and needlework done at the school. Many more, unidentified to date, attended, especially before 1814, when formal attendance lists were first kept. The longevity of the school, the size of the enrollments, the wide geographic distribution of the student body, the development of the curriculum and the training of teachers, all distinguish it from the numerous other female academies of the Early Republic. The young women were exposed to ideas and customs from all the relatively isolated parts of the new nation, developing a more national perspective than most Americans of the period.
Watercolor of The Litchfield Female Academy by Emily Hart, c. 1856
Sarah Pierce, as drawn by George Catlin, c. 1825
Lucy Sheldon Beach, a student of the academy, by Anson Dickinson
Art was part of the curriculum at Litchfield. This painting was made by student Sally Miller in 1811.