Unknown Lady with Gold Comb or
Portrait of Young Woman on Red Couch, not dated.
Oil on canvas, 33 by 28 inches.
Photograph courtesy of David A. Schorsch & Eileen M. Smiles Fine Art

The Borden Limner was the name first coined for the artist who painted the portraits of Captain Daniel Borden and his wife Mary B. Jenney, of New Bedford, MA (Collection of New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA). This was the subject of the thesis of the late Dr. Robert Bishop and an exhibit of the same name held at the University of Michigan Museum on Art in the winter of 1976-77. Then in 1980, Dr. Bishop on the evidence of a strong correlation between a work seen and citations shared with him from a ledger book of the Blunt’s, still in private hands, Bishop identified Blunt as the Borden limner. Over 100 portraits which he attributed to Blunt were then featured in an exhibit John Blunt: the man, the artist and his times held at the American Folk Art Museum, New York, in 1980.

In his 1980 exhibition catalogue, Dr. Bishop summarized the characteristics of the Borden Limner's body of work as follows

1. A palette favoring unusual and distinctive shades of red, yellow, blue and green.

2. Flesh tones with a greenish hue.

3. Canvas with red ground or primer

5. Faces islands of realism with willful disregard of perspective and no identifiable light source

6. Furniture abstracted to form decorative pattern

7. Figures posed in similar positions

8. Costumes similarly detailed and represented

9. Decorative accessories repeated in nearly identical form from canvas to canvas

10. Laces painted in thin, transparent manner

11. Stretchers which appear to be made by same hand

Refer to Dr. Robert Bishop. "John Blunt: The Man, The Artist and His Times." The Clarion. Museum of American Folk Art, NYC, p. 21

Portraits of other Borden sitters from Fall River, MA have since come to light including:
Joann Edson Borden (1811-1849) and Leander Borden (1809-1894) Oil on canvas. Height 33 inches. Width 28 inches Collection of Portsmouth Historical Society. Anonymous loan
However, the following portraits have yet to be located: Elizabeth Ayer Clement, Colonel Jesse Clement, David Lowell Dearborn, Reverend Calvin Lincoln, Captain William Henry Topham (1806-1832) & his wife Abby Ingraham Bush Topham 1808-1884), Asa Holman Waters, Susan Holman Waters, Asa Wood Jr., Polly Stoddard Wood, Sarah Caroline Wood, Mary Phelps Lovell Woodward, etc. in addition to those illustrated below:
Unidentified Squire and his Wife Oil on canvas. Height 30 inches. Width 25 inches Illustrated Clarion fig. 48 & 49. Provenance cited: Retta G. Robertson collection
Unidentified Gentleman and his Wife Oil on canvas. Height 36 ½ inches. Width 30 ½ inches Illustrated Clarion fig. 50 & 51. Provenance cited: John M. Graham II
Should you know the whereabouts of these portraits or of others like them, please contact me directly at dmchild@eslamprey.com.