i .].gk,gj= Caleb Bingham J HE MISSOURI ARTIST II \ V Kansas City Public Library GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM Painted by Himself GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM THE MISSOURI ARTIST BY FERN HELEN RUSK, Ph. D. Assistant in Classical Archaeology and the History of Art in the University of Missouri THE HUGH STEPHENS CO. Jefferson City, Mo. 1917 Edition Limited to 500. This Volume is No. Copyright, 1917 By FERN HELEN RUSK. 4 TO JOHN PICKARD "Missouri's Apostle of the Beautiful" Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/georgecaIebbinghOOrusk PREFACE Attracted by the artists of the periods of great art activity, we are Hkely to forget those who have kept the light burning when conditions have been most unfavorable. The wonder is often expressed concerning Bingham that he turned to art at all in his pioneer country, where thought was only for the necessities of life. And yet he made it his life work. True, his virility, positive convictions and lively interest led him into politics again and again, only to return, however, with renewed interest to his profession. Bingham, I am convinced, was more successful in his line of work, the de- lineation of contemporary life, than was any other American artist of his time. For this reason I have undertaken this study in an endeavor to bring together the facts of his life while they are still available, and, by setting forth the char- acter of his work, to make an estimate of his place in Amer- ican art. Only brief articles on Bingham have previously been published, so my information has been obtained almost entirely from primary sources, from original documents and newspapers, from contemporary friends of the artist, and from my own study of his paintings. The content of this book, in a less complete form than it is here presented, was submitted in 1914 in partial fulfill- ment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate School of the University of Missouri. Its publication at this time seems justified by the approaching celebration of the Missouri Centennial. At a time when we (1) 2 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. would make special effort to do honor to the pioneers in every phase of activity that has helped toward the develop- ment of our state, Bingham is one of the characters who stand out most prominently. He attracts our attention not only on account of his characteristic pictorial representa- tions of Missouri life, but also because of his prominent public life and service that were of such usefulness and in- tegrity that they may justly be looked upon with pride by citizens of Missouri as sources of inspiration and noble ex- ample. It is with pleasure that I acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. John Pickard for his advice and criticism in the work; to Dr. John Shapley for his assistance in collecting and organ- izing material; to Miss May Simonds for the valuable help she was able to give from her long study of the artist and for the use of letters and data which she had obtained in prepara- tion for her proposed monograph; and to my sister, Mrs. Zay Rusk SuUens, for her very helpful criticism of the liter- ary style of the work. I have also to thank Mrs. Louise J. Bingham Neff, Miss Laura Rollins King, Mrs. Arthur J. Walter and Mr. W. E. Thomas for the use of letters and other information, and Mr. N. T. Gentry, Miss Eva Johnston and Judge James M. Gibson for the use of several cuts and photographs. And finally, I would acknowledge the assist- ance of many friends and relatives of the artist who have contributed in various ways, directing me to paintings and giving valuable information which I could have obtained from no other source. Among these I wish to express my special gratitude to Mr. C. B. Rollins and Col. R. B. Price, who have most cordially given much information from their personal knowledge of General Bingham and have continually encouraged me in the preparation of this monograph. CONTENTS Chapter Page I — Family and Early Life (1811-30). Autobiographical sketch 7 Emigration to Franklin, Missouri 11 First attempts at art 13 First meeting with Harding 14 Death of father 15 Removal of family to Arrow Rock 15 Life in Boonville as cabinet maker's apprentice 16 Student of law and theology 17 Taught by Harding 17 II— First Work in Painting (1830-37). First serious portrait work 18 In St. Louis 20 First marriage 22 Portrait painting in Columbia 23 III— In Philadelphia and Washington, D. C. (1837-44). In Philadelphia 25 At Rocheport convention 26 Portrait of his wife 28 Portrait work in Washington, D. C 29 IV — Genre Painting and Political Activity (1844-56). First genre paintings 32 Elected to the State Legislature 37 Seat in the Legislature contested and lost 38 Painting In a Quandary and other genre works 41 Re-elected to the Legislature 44 In New York 46 Wife's death 49 Second marriage 49 Paintings of Shooting for the Beef and Emigration of Daniel Boone 49 Paintings of the "election series" 53 Painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware 64 V—Dusseldorf Period (1856-60). Life in Europe 65 Commission from the Missouri Legislature 66 Painting of Jolly Flatboatmen No. 2 68 Return to the States 69 Other commissions 70 (3) 4 CONTENTS Chapter Page Return to Europe 72 Portrait of Baron von Humboldt 72 Return to the States 73 Portraits painted soon after his return 73 Allegorical painting 75 VI — Civil War Period (1860-66). Service in the Union Army 76 Views concerning the war 77 Painting to celebrate the capture of Camp Jackson 78 Service as State Treasurer 78 Opposition to Jennison 79 Painting of Order No. 11 82 Painting of Major Dean in Jail 87 VII — Later Work in Painting and Politics (1866-79). Candidate for Congressional nomination 88 Residence in Independence 88 Commission from the Legislature 89 Portraits of his son and others , 90 Removal to Kansas City 91 Charles P. Stewart, a pupil 91 Friendship with Major Rollins 92 Portraits of Major Rollins and others 93 Sketches made in Major Rollins' home 95 Landscape paintings 95 Painting of Puzzled Witness 97 President of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners. . . 97 Candidate for Congressional nomination 98 Service as Adjutant-General 98 Death of second wife 101 A characteristic debate 102 Professor of Art in the University of Missouri 102 Third marriage 104 Commissioner for the Robert E. Lee monument 105 Paintings in his studio the year of his death 105 Portrait of himself 106 Death 106 Administrator's sale of his paintings 107 VIII — Conclusion — Estimate of Bingham's Work. The three periods of his artistic career 109 His views concerning art Ill His position among American artists of his time 115 Appendix — Chronological list of Bingham's paintings 118 Chronological register of Bingham's life 129 ILLUSTRATIONS Page Portrait of Bingham, by himself Frontispiece Portrait of Judge David Todd 16 Portrait of Mrs. Wm. Johnston 17 Portrait of Judge Warren Woodson 18 Portrait of Hon. Josiah Wilson 19 Portrait of Bingham, by himself 20 Portrait of Dr. Anthony W. Rollins 20 Portrait of Mrs. Anthony W, Rollins 21 Portrait of Josiah Lamme 22 Portrait of Mrs. Josiah Lamme and Son 23 Portrait of Roger North Todd 24 Portrait of Gen. Richard Gentry 24 Portrait of Thomas Miller 25 Sketches 26,27 Portrait of John Quincy Adams 28 Portrait of John Howard Payne 29 Jolly Flatboatmen (Painting) 34 Jolly Flatboatmen (Engraving) 36 Sketches used in Jolly Flatboatmen 37 Raftsmen Playing Cards 40 In a Quandary 41 Sketches used in Raftsmen Playing Cards 42 Portrait of Dr. Oscar F. Potter 43 Emigration of Daniel Boone (Painting) 52 Emigration of Daniel Boone (Engraving and Sketch) 53 Canvassing for a Vote 54 County Election 55 Sketches used in County Election 56,57 Stump Speaking 60 Sketches used in Stump Speaking 61 Verdict of the People (Engraving) 62 Verdict of the People (Painting) 64 Washington Crossing the Delaware 65 Portrait of Elijah S. Stephens 70 Portrait of Mrs. Elijah S. Stephens 71 Portrait of Mrs. R. L. Todd and Daughter 72 Portrait of Dr. Edwin Price 73 Portrait of Col. R. B. Price 74 Portrait of Mrs. R. B. Price 75 Gen. Lyon and Gen. Blair Starting for Camp Jackson 78 Order No. 11 84 Major Dean in Jail 85 (5) 6 ILLUSTRATIONS Page Portrait of Rollins Bingham 90 Portrait of Major James S. Rollins 92 Portrait of Major James S. Rollins 93 Portrait of Mrs. James S. Rollins 94 Portrait of Miss Sallie Rodes Rollins 95 Pike's Peak 96 Puzzled Witness 97 CHAPTER 1. FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE (1811-30). The "Missouri Artist," George Caleb Bingham, was not a native of the state which claims him. He was born March 20, 1811, in Augusta County, Virginia, on a large plan- tation of eleven hundred and eighty acres on South River. The farm included the famous Wier's Cave, known also as Hannah's Cave, Madison's Cave and Amend's Cave, from the names of persons owing it at various times. ^ His father, Henry Vest Bingham, was of Scotch parentage, and his mother, Mary Amend, was of German descent, with perhaps a French strain, if we may judge by her mother's maiden name, which was Bushon. Both were of honorable character, and the mother, particularly, was very intelligent.^ Very little is known of Bingham's ancestry and the condi- tions surrounding his early life. A short sketch, evidently the beginning of an autobiography which he intended to write, gives more information than can be obtained from any other source. The manuscript, still in existence in 1902, was hastily written in pencil without any corrections, and it is valuable, not only as a source of historical facts, but also as an illus- tration of Bingham's clear and charming style as a writer. "I have no knowledge of my ancestry beyond my maternal and paternal grandfathers. The former was born of German parentage near the city of Little York in the state of Pennsyl- vania. His name was Matthias Amend. He was by trade a millwright and a most excellent workman in his line. Before ^Abstracts from Records of Augusta County, Virginia. «NeflP, Mrs. Louise J. Bingham. Unpublished Sketch of Bingham. (7) 8 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. the close of the last century he migrated to the valley of Virginia and settled at the place on which is the celebrated cavern known as Wier's Cave. Through his grounds flowed the beautiful little South River which forms one of the three branches of the Shenandoah that intersect each other near the village of Port Republic. Upon this never-failing stream he erected a sawmill and gristmill which furnished lumber and breadstuff to the community for miles around. Its revolving wheels were the earliest wonder upon which my eyes opened, and as an evidence of the skill with which they were constructed, they are yet in motion after a lapse of more than three score years. But two children were born to my Grandfather Amend, a son and a daughter. The former died in early childhood. The death of the mother soon followed, and the daughter, Mary, was the only remaining solace to the bereaved mill- wright. Upon her were quite naturally centered all his hopes and affections. Having been the child of poverty himself and, consequently, favored with none of the advantages of education, his experience of the evils of such a deprivation impelled him to obtain for his daughter such means of instruc- tion as the country then afforded. The nearest school was six miles from his residence. This Mary attended from the house of a kinsman near-by, to which she went every Monday morn- ing, never failing to return to her father on the succeeding Saturday, in the evening of which and the Sunday following she would impart to him the lessons she had received during the week. "Thus father and child were educated together, the child obtaining a good English education, and the father learning to read and write and to cast up accounts. "My grandfather, George Bingham, was born and raised in some of the New England states, from which at about the FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE. 9 close of the Revolution he migrated to Virginia and settled on the east side of the Blue Ridge, about eighteen miles west of Charlottesville, the home of Jefferson and the seat of the Virginia University. "He was what is termed a local Methodist preacher and as such ministered to a congregation in a meeting-house erected for their accommodation upon his plantation. He cultivated tobacco and grain by the aid of a number of slaves, to whom he was exceedingly kind and indulgent, never using the lash or allowing it to be used upon his place. "I remember him well as a tall and white-headed old gentleman, overflowing with the milk of human kindness. He had three sons and four daughters who reached the age of maturity. My father, Henry V. Bingham, was the oldest son and the oldest child. He was blessed with a good constitution, and leading from early boyhood an active life, he presented in his person at the time of my remembrance a fine specimen of vigorous manhood, measuring six feet in height and weighing over a hundred and eighty pounds. His education was only such as could be acquired in the common field schools of the time, but he was a constant reader, and his mind became stored with a good amount of historical and political information. "After reaching his twenty-first year he had the charge of his father's plantation and conducted its affairs with energy and industry, laboring in the fields with the slaves and taking the annual crop of tobacco to market in Richmond. "The present era of railroads and rapid transportation furnishes a striking contrast to the roads and locomotive powers which then furnished the Virginian with the only means of reaching a market with the staple upon which he predicated his hope of future wealth. Not even the common wagon was used. Each hogshead of tobacco was strongly 10 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. hooped from end to end, the heads were made of thick and substantial material, and in the center of each was inserted a strong hickory pin to which a pair of shafts were attached, and by which a single horse could roll a hogshead of tobacco from the shed in which it was prepared from fifty to a hundred miles, as the distance might be, to the market which furnished a purchaser. "This was generally done at a season of the year when the roads were dry, and when the labor both of horses and men could be best spared from the fields. At such times the roads to Richmond would be filled for miles at a stretch with 'tobacco rollers* who enlivened the hours with singing songs and cracking their jokes. Some of the latter were occasionally of a practical nature and calculated to test the temper of their unfortunate subjects. "Taking his provisions and blankets with him, each roller would encamp, and frequently alone, wherever he might be at the approach of night, and in the event of a cloudy morning it not infrequently happened that a roller, after attaching his horse and traveling several miles, would be astonished by meeting a roller traveling exactly the opposite of the course which appeared to him to be the way to Richmond. Questions and answers would be immediately exchanged which would make it clear to his mind that the shafts of his hogshead, which were toward Richmond when he laid down, had been reversed by some wicked rival while he was asleep, and that deceived thereby he was wending his way homeward instead of lessening his distance to Richmond. Should he meet in Richmond the wag who thus tricked him, a fight might ensue, or a jolly laugh and a drink all around, as the humor of the parties might happen to be. FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE. 11 "In consequence of the entire failure of the mill streams on the east side of the Blue Ridge during a period of drouth, it became necessary for my father to take a load of grain "over the mountain" to my Grandfather Amend's mill on the South River. While there he became acquainted, as a matter of course, with my mother, Mary Amend, fell in love with her, and in due time offered himself in marriage and was accepted. "As my mother, Mary, was the only treasure which my Grandfather Amend valued, in giving her away, he also surrendered to my father his entire earthly possessions, stipu- lating only that he should have a home with his daughter during the period of his natural life. "As soon, therefore, as the wedding was consummated, my father became the proprietor of the lands including the mill and Wier's Cave, so called in honor of its discoverer, a little Dutchman named Barnett Wier, who was in the habit of roaming among the hills and forests with his dog and gun."^ Unfortunately, the charming account breaks off here, and we must seek the rest through other and often less dependable sources. An examination of records from the circuit court office of Augusta County, Virginia, shows that Matthias Amend (spelled Mathias Amond in the record) deeded eleven hundred and eighty acres on the South River to Henry V. Bingham on the ninth of December, 1809.^ So we conclude that Henry V. Bingham and Mary Amend were married in the year of 1809. As stated above, the subject of our sketch, George Caleb Bingham, was born in 1811. In 1819, when he was eight years old, the family emigrated to Missouri. His father had lost »From a copy by Miss May Simonds of the original manuscript, owned by Rollins Bingham in 1902. ^Abstracts from Records of Augusta County, Virginia. 12 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. money through a security debt, and he hoped to retrieve his fortunes in the great, alluring West. So with his wife and seven children and the grandfather, Matthias Amend, he made the long, hard journey. They settled in the old town of Frank- lin in Howard County.^ Both town and county have since been totally changed. The Missouri River gradually made inroads upon the town, and the inhabitants were compelled to move farther and farther back, until now what was then the business section forms part of the bed over which the river flows, and the Franklin of today is some miles north of the original site. The County of Howard has been organized into thirty-one counties and parts of nine others.^ When we consider that at the time of the Bingham emigra- tion Franklin was the most important town west of St. Louis in spite of the fact that it had had an existence of only about seven years, in a county which at the beginning of those seven years had only a hundred and twelve men in all its vast area, we may form some idea of the frontier nature of the region. Though the district had no doubt been visited by French trappers and hunters before the beginning of the nineteenth century, the first authentic record we have of the advent of white men into the county is contained in the diary of Clark, who, with Lewis, made his exploring trip up the Missouri in 1804.^ At that time many tribes of Indians occupied the county and were the source of continual annoyance to the early settlers, who began coming in 1808. So forts and stockades were erected for protection, and the white men formed themselves into a military company. On the site of Franklin, Fort iNefT, Mrs. L. J. B., op. ext. Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. Miss Laura Rollins King, Fort Worth, Tex. 'Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, v. Ill, p. 310/. ^Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, v. 1, part 2. FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE. 13 Kincaid was established in 1812. But after 1815 these forms of military defense were no longer so essential ; for in that year a treaty was made with the Indians whereby they surrendered all of Howard County as well as other large tracts of country. Thereafter they returned only about once a year, and then only in small hunting parties.^ The early settlers had many hardships aside from the Indian troubles. There were two cogmills run by horse-power in the county — one of these was at Franklin — and corn was carried on horseback for miles to be ground. Until as late as 1835 there was no house of worship in Howard County. In 1818 a land office was established in Franklin, and the first land sales west of St. Louis were made. In the following year the first newspaper in Missouri west of St. Louis was published there, and in 1820 a four-horse stage line reached from the metropolis to the flourishing little town.^ Bingham showed his inclination toward art at a very early age; for in later years, upon a visit to the old Virginia home, he found his childish paintings, done before he was eight years old, still quite plainly outlined on the pump, fence, and outbuildings.^ It is said that his first efTorts were made in his fourth year, when he attempted to copy a foreshortened figure rudely drawn by his father upon a slate. Delighted with the results, he kept up the practice of drawing until in his twelfth year he was able to copy quite truthfully such engravings as he could obtain access to through chance or interested friends.^ For paint in his early experiments he used axle grease, vegetable dyes, brick dust mixed with oil, iConard, op. cit., v. Ill, p. 310ff. ^Ibid. »Nefl. Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. ♦Bulletin of the American Art Union. Aug., 1849, pp. 10-12. 14 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. and even his own blood, obtained by clipping the ends of his fingers.^ It seems probable that he may have used ocher too ; for official records show that earlier owners of the Bingham estate had got ocher from Wier's Cave.^ In the summer of 1820 Chester Harding, who had come to St. Louis in the previous year, made his first trip out into the wilderness of Missouri to paint the notable pioneer, Daniel Boone, who had settled just across the river from Franklin at Boonslick, a saline spring from which Boone and his two sons obtained salt, shipping it down the Missouri to St. Louis in rude canoes made of hollow sycamore logs.^ Harding tells in his My Egotistigraphy of the rude, primitive life of this old settler and of his astonishment and that of his eighteen children as they watched the likeness grow upon the canvas.'* Perhaps the little nine-year-old George Bingham watched part of the process or saw the picture when it was completed. At least he must have seen some of Harding's work; for he himself has told of becoming interested in and receiving his first impression of portrait painting from Chester Harding when the latter was temporarily residing in Franklin in 1820.^ In Franklin H. V. Bingham with his family lived for four years and enjoyed a degree of prosperity. The rich clay loam soil of the region is suitable for raising tobacco, and the average production of the highest part of the county amounts to a thousand pounds an acre.^ Mr. Bingham realized the value of the land for the purpose, and, with a partner, erected a tobacco factory in Franklin.'' He also bought a farm of one iNeff, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. * Abstracts from Records of Augusta Co., Virginia. •Harding, Chester: My Egotistigraphy, p. 35/, *Ibid. 'Letter From James Harding, son of Chester Harding, to Miss Simonds, Feb. 12, 1902. «Conard. op. cit., v. Ill, p. 310/. 'NefT, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE. 15 hundred and sixty acres in Arrow Rock Township, SaUne County. In 1821 he was county court judge, and he owned a tavern northwest of the pubHc square in FrankHn, with the sign of the "Square and Compass."^ But reverses came. In 1823 the father died, leaving the mother with the large family of children, of whom the oldest, Henry, was only about fourteen and the next, George, was twelve. Either Mr. Bingham had failed in his tobacco venture or his partner defrauded his widow and children of their interest; for they found themselves with nothing left but the little farm in Saline County, about three miles from Arrow Rock.2 To this, then, they came in 1823, and they found a country still more primitive than the one they had left; for Saline County's earliest settlers consisted of the overflow from Howard County. In 1828 there was still a large settle- ment of Osage Indians near Malta Bend, about thirty miles from Arrow Rock, and bands of other Indians roved about over the county. In 1819 the white population of the entire county numbered but three hundred.^ It was necessary for the older members of the family to bend every effort toward earning money for food and clothing. The mother's education now stood her in good stead. She not only taught her own children, but she also opened a small school for young women.* There were as yet perhaps no school houses in the country ; but education was not entirely neglected; schools were run upon private subscriptions and were held in homes where a room could be spared for the pur- pose. Mrs. Bingham also boarded her students who came from a distance. She was probably as well equipped for »Houck, History of Missouri, v. III. p. 60. ^Neflf, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. •Conard, op. cit., v. V, p. 475. *Neff, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. 16 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. teaching as anyone in the locaHty; for aside from her own education she had a good, even if small, library of English literature, which she had saved, and from which George ob- tained the foundation for the excellent command of English that he evinced in later life. He now helped his brother in caring for the little farm, and during seasons in which the crops did not demand attention, they busied themselves at whatever other occupations could be found. George was quite skillful at making cigars, a trade which he had probably learned in his father's factory at Franklin. It must have been more difficult now than ever before for him to obtain time and materials for drawing and painting; but all through his life he showed a spirit of determination that could not be crushed by difficulties. And in these hard circumstances many an odd hour left over from the day's work he spent in drawing and painting. 1 When, in his sixteenth year, an opportunity was offered him to serve as an apprentice to a cabinet-maker in Boonville, his mother was glad to have him accept the position, thinking that such work would be less trying on his delicate health than the farm work, which necessitated so much exposure. It is said that the cabinet-maker was also an itinerant Metho- dist preacher, by the name of Jesse Green.^ He probably met George and his mother often in the camp-meetings, which were of much significance in the lives of the people of the day, being not only their sole occasions of congregational religious worship, but also serving as means of social intercourse among the people who lived many miles apart. The young apprentice * did good work as a cabinet-maker, surpassing his fellow- workers, and he also proved to be adept as a wood-carver. 'Simonds, Miss May, Unpublished Sketch of Bingham's Life. Plate II JUDGE DAVID TODD Plate III Property of Dr. J. T. M. Johnston MRS. WM. JOHNSTON FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE. 17 showing an artistic taste in his designs. But though he did all that was required of him in the shop, thus earning money enough to help out very materially in supporting the family at home, he did not enjoy the work; he was always glad when he could get time off to be in the out-of-doors or to draw and paint. He still had to content himself with very inadequate materials, using boards, which he himself prepared, in lieu of canvases, and an earthy variety of hematite called "keel" for sketching.^ But along with his cabinet-making and painting Bingham began the study of law at this time. He hoped to be able to receive better training in the profession later, when his appren- ticeship should be completed, and eventually to become an efficient lawyer. He also at some time in his life gave a good deal of study to theology, planning to enter the Methodist ministry.^ And it seems very probable that such study was made in this period of years, when he was working in the shop of a Methodist preacher and was in a state of uncertainty as to the career he should follow, vacillating between various professions. But before his apprenticeship was finished, he again met Chester Harding, and upon Harding's advice he gave up all else and turned to painting as his life work.^ We are also told that Harding gave the young cabinet-maker his first instructions in painting.^ »Col. R. B. Price, Columbia, Mo. 2Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 'Letter from Rollins Bingham, son of the artist, to Miss Simonds, Mar. 1, 1902. ♦Simonds, Miss May, op. cit. (From Bingham through Mr. Matthew Hastings, an old acquaintance of the artist.) 2 18 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. CHAPTER II. FIRST WORK IN PAINTING (1830-37). Bingham had hardly mastered the rudiments of his profession before he began to receive sittings for portraits. He probably did his first work in a studio in Franklin which we learn from a letter (the signature is omitted) published in the Missouri Statesman was gratuitously placed at his disposal. ^ His first portrait work was done with such materials as a house-painter's shop could supply, together with some stumps of brushes abandoned by an itinerant artist,^ perhaps Harding himself. He had little sense of color ; but his drawing produced such striking likenesses that he soon had a large number of patrons, many of whom, unsophisticated as they were, looked upon his creations as the perfection of the "divine art." No less remarkable was his facility of execution. It is said that he often completed a portrait in one day, and that he made the record of twenty-five in the course of thirty days.^ We are told of one occasion when he went into a little town, "hung out his shingle/' painted the portraits of seven lawyers and three doctors to everybody's satisfaction, pocketed the proceeds, and left town, all within the space of a month.^ In writing of the early days in Missouri one author says: "Almost every family had its Bingham portraits, the family carriage, the family jewelry and the family burying ground."^ A portrait of Judge David Todd, a lawyer who settled in Franklin in the early days, is reckoned as our artist's first ^Missouri Statesman, Aug. 15, 1879. ^Bulletin of the American Art Union, Aug., 1849, pp. 10-12. *Ibid. «Slmonds, Miss May, op. cit. (From Mr. Hastings.) •Whitney, Mrs. Carrie W., History of Kansas City. Mo., v. I, p. 649. Plate IV Property of Dr. Woodson Moss JUDGE WARREN WOODSON Property of Mrs. J. IF. Stone HON. JOSIAH WILSON FIRST WORK IN PAINTING. 19 serious work.^ The painting was destroyed in the University of Missouri fire of 1892; but a photograph of it shows us the general character of the work (PI. II). In spite of a somewhat faulty drawing and inadequate modelling, the portrait is by no means void of character. Judge Todd was born in about 1790; he is represented here at slightly past forty; so the paint- ing was evidently done soon after 1830, probably in 1832 or *33. To about the same time we must assign the portrait of Mrs. Wm. Johnston, done on wood instead of canvas. Mrs. John- ston was born in 1787, and she does not appear to be much past forty in the portrait. She wears a collar and headdress of filmy lace, which serve to light up that part of the picture, while the rest is very dull and dark (PI. III). In 1834 Bingham went to Columbia, Missouri, and painted some of the prominent citizens, among them Col. Caleb S. Stone, Maj. James S. Rollins, Judge Warren Woodson and Hon. Josiah Wilson (Pis. IV and V). The last three he finished at one time, and an anecdote is told of the bewilder- ment of the three men when they came for their pictures. Bingham turned the faces of the paintings around from the wall and bade his patrons choose. Each pretended to be puzzled as to which he should take.^ In reality, the pictures do resemble each other somewhat. In the first place, all three of the young men had black hair and ruddy complexions and wore the stiff -bosom shirt, the broad re vers and the inevitable high stock. Then, the manner of treatment of the three is the same. All are placed in the same lighting, all present a left three-quarters view of the face and bust and, evidently, all have been told to look at the same spot while their pictures were being made. The paint, of dull tones, is laid on thinly. ^Missouri Statesman, Jan. 16, 1880. «Mr. C. B. Rollins. 20 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. The flesh has a ruddy, leathery appearance, and the hair, particularly in the portrait of Judge Wilson, has more of the appearance of a wig than of real hair, so clearly defined and regular is its outline against the face. But in spite of a certain stifi^ness and conventionality of the works, they show the result of no little ability for catching likenesses and for putting them upon canvas in a firm, straightforward manner. There is also a proper subordination of the non-essentials; details of dress are not insisted upon, but are treated comparatively summarily and are kept in the shadow, while the full light falls upon the face. A self-portrait painted in 1835 when Bingham was twenty-four years old is done in the same style as the preceding ones (PI. VI) . A comparison of it with a photograph taken at about the same time^ leads us to believe that he considered himself rather more handsome than he really was. Both pictures show a noble brow and an alert, intellectual face. Bingham was always a small, delicate man in body, but the charm of his face compensated for that. It was upon this visit to Columbia that Bingham first met James S. Rollins, a young lawyer of about his own age, who proved a most substantial friend to him all his life. Mr. Rollins immediately became interested in the young artist and lent him a hundred dollars, which made it possible for him to go to St. Louis to study. He had attempted the trip once before, starting out afoot toward the city, about one hundred and fifty miles distant, with his little bundle of belongings swung over his shoulder. But some time before he had reached his destination, he was attacked by measles and lay in an old log cabin, completely deserted, save for a young doctor and an old negress, who cared for him. The negress could not be induced to go near the sufferer, but she poked food and drink iPhotograph owned by Mr. C. B. Rollins. Plate VI Plate VII Property of Mr. C. B. Rollins DR. ANTHONY W. ROLLINS Plate VITI Property of Mr. C. B. Rollins MRS. ANTHONY \V. ROLLINS FIRST WORK IN PAINTING. 21 through a crack into the cabin, and the doctor nursed Bingham carefully until he was strong enough to care for himself. Com- pletely shattered in health, it was impossible for him to com- plete his journey; so he returned to his home in Saline County.^ We know that he had a severe case of measles, which left him entirely bald for the rest of his life, when he was nineteen years old ;^ so his first attempt at a trip to St. Louis must have been made at that time — in 1830. It was a great disappointment to the young aspirant to be thus compelled to return home, his plans blighted and his body so emaciated that even his mother did not know him. But he was not discouraged for long. He applied himself to portrait painting for a few years, as we have seen, and then in 1835, with the financial help of Mr. Rollins, he started again and this time reached St. Louis. We conclude that it was sometime in 1835 that he went because he was working in and near his home in 1833 and '34, and in 1835 he painted residents of Clay County.^ Then, as is stated below, there is dependable record of his being in St. Louis early in 1836. We do not know whom he studied under in St. Louis; we are told only that he kept in touch with Chester Harding whenever the latter was in the city.^ His extreme poverty made it necessary for him to undergo, literally, the proverbial hardships of the young artist. During his stay in the city he slept rolled up in a blanket in an unfinished attic. In spite of his humble condition he soon made friends in the best circle of cultured, intellectual people and was induced to visit them in their homes.^ A letter written from St. Louis, February 13, 1836, to his fiancee, >Mr. C. B. Rollins. m>id. »See appendix. *Simonds, Miss May, op. cit. •Neflf, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. 22 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. Miss Elizabeth Hutchison, of Boonville, leaves us in no doubt as to his location at that time. From the contents of this letter it would appear that he was then not spending all of his time in learning for its own sake, but that he was probably painting portraits in order to earn money. At least, he tells his sweetheart that he had not insisted upon their immediate union when he saw her last because he felt that it was best "to struggle for a while alone" until he could place his mother in a comfortable situation "and be even with the world." The letter, the language of which shows culture and refine- ment, is full of the suggestion of the struggle with difficulties which he was encountering; but still he expresses a growing confidence in his succeeding as a painter and a determination to bend every effort toward becoming distinguished in the profession. "(I am more) confident now (of suc)ceeding as a painter t(han) I was before I (came) here, I design next winter to try (what) I can do in the South and wherever I (may) be, I am determined to use every exertion to become distinguished in the profession which I have adopted." From other fragments of the letter it may be inferred that Bingham expected by the first of April to be financially able to marry, and he expresses the supposition that the wedding, which they once expected to have in Franklin, will "then, at last," take place in Boonville.^ He did return to Boonville sometime in the year of 1836 and was married to the Miss Hutchison referred to above, a young woman of but seventeen years, who was always spoken of as being very charming and beautiful, amiable and intelli- gent. Before the wedding he had built with his own hands the small but substantial brick house in Arrow Rock, which is 'Letter lent the author by Mrs. Arthur J. Walter, Adrian, Mo. The portions in parenthesis are missing in the mutilated original letter. Plate IX Properly of Mr. C. B. Rollins JOSIAH LAMME Property of Mr. C. B. Rollins MRS. JOSIAH LAMME AND SON -'V FIRST WORK IN PAINTING. 23 still standing.^ To this new home, also shared with his mother until her death, Bingham brought his young bride.^ In 1837 we find him again in Columbia working upon portraiture. A portrait of Dr. Anthony W. Rollins, which was in 1871 presented to the University and was deemed "a most faithful and accurate likeness" of the subject,^ was painted at this time. (PI. VII). Also, in the same year were made portraits of Mrs. Anthony W. Rollins, Mr. Josiah Lamme, Mrs. Josiah Lamme and little son, Hon. Roger North Todd and General Richard Gentry. All of these show a decided advance in freedom of handling. The heads are again turned to the left and are quite uniform in the angle which they present, a little more of a front view being given than in the earlier portraits (the portrait of Judge Todd excepted). But the features are less sharply outlined and less conventional, and the lights and shades and modelling are better, giving a more pictorial quality to the work. The flesh tones, too, show improvement; they are not so leathery in appearance. But most noticeable of all is the improvement in the treat- ment of the hair. The contrast is most striking between the portraits of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lamme (Pis. V and IX). In the latter we are given much more of the quality of real hair, which frames in the face with a slightly irregular contour, rather than with sharp, geometrically correct lines. The face of the Wilson portrait, too, seems almost made of metal in comparison with the flesh quality expressed in the other. We have not the feeling that the model was so carefully posed and his clothes arranged with such impossible stiff^ness and smooth- ness in the later portrait. The representation of Mrs. Anthony W. RolHns is convincing (PI. VIII). The honest, substantial •Miss Laura Rollins King, Fort Worth, Tex. «Neff, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. »Switzler, W. F., History of the University of Mo. 'Unpublished.) 24 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. character of this woman, in whose face the cares of pioneer life have left their lines, is clearly expressed. The portraits of Hon. Roger North Todd and Gen. Richard Gentry (Pis. XI and XII), particularly the former, are noteworthy for their vivacity and spirit. Mrs. Josiah Lamme and little son (PI. X), form the first portrait group, probably, which Bingham undertook. The head of the mother is done quite satis- factorily. The modelling of the neck is a bit bad, and the left shoulder is a little too long, but the face is well modelled and full of life. The hands and the baby, however, are new problems. The hands are arranged awkwardly, but the artist has rightly considered them of minor importance and has given them little emphasis. The baby has too old an expres- sion; his head is fairly well modelled, but his neck and chest are wrong, and his head and neck are not in proper relation- ship to the rest of his body. A portrait of Mr. Thomas Miller, first president of Columbia College, was also probably painted in this same year, 1837. It is of particular interest because it is the smallest portrait (it is a true miniature) that, as far as we know, Bingham ever painted. It is here reproduced in its original size (PI. XIII). Plate XI Property oj Mr. N. T. Gentry ROGER NORTH TOED Plate XII Property of Mr. W. R. Gentry GEN. RICHARD GENTRY Plate XIII Property of Miss Ruth Rollins THOMAS MILLER IN PHILADELPHIA AND WASHINGTON, D. C. 25 CHAPTER III. IN PHILADELPHIA AND WASHINGTON, D. C. (1837-44). In 1837 Bingham went to Philadelphia to study in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the oldest and most flourishing art institution in the country. Here he must have come into contact with the work of artists of the Revolutionary period of American art, most important among them Gilbert Stuart, the great portrait painter, who had received his training in England in the time of the notable English portrait painters. Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas Gainsborough. A number of years later Bingham made copies of Stuart's Athenaeum portraits of George and Martha Washington.^ Among contemporaries whose work he must have seen in Philadelphia are Thomas Sully, portrait painter, and John Neagle, whose portrait — almost genre — of Pat Lyons painted in 1826 excited so much interest on account of its truthful representation of the sturdy character of the blacksmith. Above all, Bingham now had an opportunity of seeing genre paintings, the branch of art which interested him most. He, like many another in his day, gave a great deal of time to portraiture, though considering it a comparatively low form of art, because it was the surest and quickest source of income. It was to literary subjects that he aspired, to pictures that tell a story. So he must have been interested in the work of Inman and other genre painters who were working in Phila- delphia at the time. No doubt he began making sketches of genre scenes himself, though we have no definite knowledge of any of his work in that line until several years later. 'See p. 67. 26 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. Some sketches of Bingham's life written since his death state that he stayed in Philadelphia three years. But that estimate seems incorrect; for of two sketches written in his lifetime one, published in 1876, states only that "in 1837 he visited Philadelphia and studied for a time in the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts."^ Of course the phrase "for a time" is rather indefinite. But a still earlier article, written in 1849, limits his stay to three months.^ This article gives the date as 1838, however, so he may have made more than one trip to Philadelphia in these years. From the fact that it is only in the very recent sketches that he is said to have spent three years in the art center, it is probable that this idea has grown up through association with the date always given next in order, 1840, when he went to Washington ; and so biographers assume that he went from Philadelphia to Washington. A portrait of Mrs. Thomas Shackelford of Saline County, the only known dated portrait by Bingham which is well authenti- cated, bears upon a card held by the woman these words in her own handwriting: "To my children: When deprived of my counsel forget not my precepts. Shun vice, love virtue. Jan. 1, 1839." This inscription was undoubtedly placed on the picture immediately after its completion, the card being painted for that purpose. The portraits of several other residents of Saline County are assigned to this time.^ So Bingham was evidently at home in 1839 and even in the latter part of 1838, according to the date on the portrait of Mrs. Shackelford. We know that he was back in Missouri at least as early as June of 1840; for at that time he was taking an active part in the presidential campaign which created such intense interest 'Davis and Durrie, History of Missouri, p. 469. ^Bulletin of the American Art Union. Aug., 1849. pp. 10-12. 'See appendix. Plate XIV Mercantile Library, St. Louis SKETCHES Plate XV Mercantile Library, St. Louis SKETCHES IN PHILADELPHIA AND WASHINGTON, D. C. 27 throughout the states that year, and particularly in states that were as evenly divided between Whigs and Democrats as was Missouri. Great mass-meetings, to which people came from many miles, were held. They often lasted for several days. Distinguished speakers used all the oratory they could muster, and banners, music and hard cider helped to keep up the enthusiasm that prevailed.^ The largest and most elaborately prepared meeting in Missouri was the one held at Rocheport in Boone County in June of that memorable year. Here for three days on the little hill east of town in a grove of sugar trees "the friends of 'Tippecanoe and Tyler too' held high carnival and bid defiance to the absent hosts of Van Buren and Johnson." Bingham was one of the speakers at this convention .2 He was of such a strong, positive character and was so much in sympathy with his countrymen that he was always a leader among them. And while he was taking a prominent part in these political affairs, because he was so vitally interested in the points at issue, he was at the same time studying the characters of the people whom he saw about him, noting their humorous as well as their serious characteristics. And he no doubt spent many an odd minute sketching figures and attitudes that attracted him (e. g. Pis. XI V and XV) These sketches made at various times while he was making stump speeches, not only for others, but for himself later when he was running for office, he worked into his compositions, •Barns, The Commonwealth of Mo., p. 256. *Ibid. •Mr. N. T. Gentry tell us of a drawing, the present location of which is not known, representing a horse race with all its attendant scenes very cleverly portrayed. One of the sketches we reproduce here, the man with the whip and the bandaged head (PI. XIV, 4), may possibly have served as a study for one of the figures in that drawing. We do not know whether the subject of the horse race was ever worked out in a painting by Bingham. 28 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. which he painted in his studio, putting in the setting and arranging the compositions from memory plus imagination.^ A portrait of the artist's wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Hutchison Bingham, probably belongs to this period. The richness of color and the fineness of finish might justify our placing it at a little later date. But unless the youthfulness of the subject is exaggerated, she was no more than twenty-one or two years old; so the portrait was probably made soon after 1840. Bingham called it The Dull Story, and it might quite as well be considered in the class of genre works as in that of portraiture. Finding her asleep one day with an open book in her lap, a book in which she had professed profound interest, her husband was struck by the humor and, at the same time, the beauty of the picture It is the beauty that he has paid most attention to in his painting. The charming young woman, with jet black hair and pink and white complexion, dressed in a shimmery satin gown with a rose in her bosom, is lying back in a mahogany chair among deep green cushions, fast asleep. The idea of sleep is quite well expressed, though the face is a little chromo-like and we feel that the artist has been rather more interested in abstract beauty than in absolute truth to nature. Quite pleasing is the arrangement of the composition on the large canvas, and the juxtaposition of rich rose, red and green colors is quite remarkable for an artist who was in general no colorist. Very often he was unable to obtain good canvases, and we find him using boards, table- linen and paper, and here he has used a canvas already made stiff and hard by a painting on the back of it. It is the lower part of a woman's figure with trailing white satin gown and with feet daintily clad in satin slippers. •Col. R. B. Price. 'Miss Margaret Nelson, Kansas City. Plate XVI Property of the G. B. Rollins Estate JOHN QUINCY ADAMS Plate XVII IN PHILADELPHIA AND WASHINGTON, D. C. 29 Later in 1840 Bingham went to Washington and opened a studio, as did many of the early artists; for among the states- men at the Capitol there was the greatest demand for portraits, which should serve as memorials of their greatness to posterity. His studio in Washington was a small and simple building, very hot, but with plenty of light, and Bingham was fond of telling how flies held high carnival on the bald head of Van Buren, drawing from that august personage "many expressions of heartfelt profanity," while he was sitting for his portrait.^ The studio was located on Pennsylvania Avenue, a part of the city which at that time was so thinly populated that it was as much country as city. The building stood in an iso- lated spot, surrounded only by pastures and fields. But it was not too far away for patrons. Perhaps the very quietness of the place attracted people. Bingham is said to have painted a host of celebrities while there, among them Webster, Clay, Walker, Breckenridge, Andrew Jackson, Calhoun, Buchanan,^ Van Buren, John Howard Payne, and John Quincy Adams. A study for the last is rather more rudely done than usual; but the finished portrait, much smaller than the study, is carefully wrought and full of character in spite of its small size (PI. XVI). It is painted on a walnut board and is of a dull brown tone; the bust is placed against a lighter yellow- brown background. We are told that this portrait was the indirect outcome of a theological discussion. Ex-President Adams, then a member of Congress, had stopped in one day at the studio, and in a debate upon the Bible which ensued, Bingham, who, we remember, had spent some time in studying for the ministry, so completely worsted the congressman that 'Simonds, Miss May, op. cit. ^St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Nov. 6, 1904, Mr. Shannon Mountjoy. 30 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. the latter exclaimed: "If you know as much about painting portraits as you do about the Bible, I'll give you a sitting."^ John Howard Payne was another who frequented the Washington studio. He came not to engage in discussions, however, but to watch the artist at his work. And Bingham painted him in the attitude which he was wont to assume upon these occasions.^ He sits on a small chair, his arm resting on the back of it and his head upon his hand (PI. XVH). This portrait, like the one of Adams, is small — about seven by nine inches. But its most unique characteristic consists in the fact that it is painted in water color. It is the only known extant work by Bingham done in that medium. Upon the picture is the written inscription: ''Author of 'Home Sweet Home* Presented by John Howard Payne To G. C. Bingham." The drawing is faulty in some parts, particularly in the arms and fingers; the chair and lower part of the bust are treated very sketchily, that they may not draw undue attention to themselves; but the face is done with quite miniature-like exactness. The flesh tones are good, and the whole is re- markably well done for an artist who was accustomed to work- ing in a different medium. It must have been while he was in Washington that Bingham painted the portrait of his oldest son, Horace, at six years of age. The painting represents the boy asleep in a big chair in which he had taken refuge when he had run away from home to his father's studio. The work is not finished; >Mr. C. B. Rollins. *Ibid. IN PHILADELPHIA AND WASHINGTON, D. C. 31 for it is said that the artist began it when he discovered the child asleep, and he was never able to get the exact pose again.^ With the exception of six months spent in Petersburg, Virginia, Bingham remained in Washington nearly four years.^ It would seem probable that he visited Missouri in that time, but we have no record of any such visits. Portraits of two Missourians^ are assigned to about 1842, but they may have been painted in Washington, or even two years later in Missouri. «MIss Laura Rollins King. ^Bulletin of the American Art Union, Aug., 1849, pp. 10-12. •See appendix. 32 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. CHAPTER IV. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY (1844-56). In 1844 Bingham returned to his old home in Saline County^ to engage in a serious study of the people and the life that he had been familiar with in earlier years. He had been successful in a financial way with his portrait painting, and he now felt able to spend a part of his time at a less lucrative, but to him a more attractive work, genre painting, in the representation of the unique western life. It was this work that gained for him the title of "The Missouri Artist," ever afterward applied to him. The first accounts we have of paintings by Bingham in this field are in the American Art Union Transactions for 1845.^ These consist of mere notices of the subjects of the pictures and the names and addresses of the members of the Art Union to whom they were allotted.^ Unfortunately, we are not able to trace these paintings beyond the first owners, nor to find any description of them. The first one mentioned here, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, won by Robert S. Bunker, Mobile, Alabama,^ announces the general character of our artist's early genre subjects; for he was first attracted by the life of the western boatmen, that unique class of people no longer seen. They were a distinct and interesting people in their manners and in their dress. Rough life on the treacher- iDr. Oscar F. Potter, St. Louis, an old friend of Bingham's, states that he knew Bingham in Arrow Rock in 1844. In the American Art Union Trans- actions Bingham is registered as a member from St. Louis in the years 1845 and *46; in 1847 he is registered from Arrow Rock. ^American Art Union Transactions for 1845, p. 29. 'For an explanation of the American Art Union see p. 33/. ^American Art Union Transactions for 1845, p. 29, No. 93. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 33 ous rivers gave them a hardy character and a sense of comrade- ship which can be felt only by people closely associated under circumstances of danger and daring.^ It was this spirit of jovial comradeship, as we shall see in the works of this period preserved to us, that Bingham liked to represent. Three other paintings by Bingham mentioned in the American Art Union record of this year, 1845, are The Con- cealed Enemy, which fell to the lot of James A. Hutchison of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Cottage Scenery, to James D. Carhart, Macon, Georgia; and Landscape, to James Thompson, 22 Dey Street, New York City.^ The last two are types of subjects seldom treated by Bingham, particularly in his early career. Jolly Flatboatmen, the first well-known work of the artist, must have been painted as early as 1845; for a copy of an engraving^ of the painting appears as a frontispiece in the American Art Union Transactions for 1846, together with an announcement of the distribution of the engraving to be made to the members of the Art Union in the following year.^ This American Art Union was an organization incorporated by the Legislature of New York, which had for its purpose the promotion of Fine Arts in the United States, the encourage- ment of native artists and the diffusion of American art through the country. Membership was obtained upon the payment of five dollars, and this fee was used to pay for 'Col. R. B. Price. ^American Art Union Transactions for 1845, p. 29, Nos. 95, 98 and 102. •Engraving (24x19 in.) made by T. Doney: American Art Union Trans- actions for 1847, p. 6. See also Supplementary Bulletin of the American Art Union, Dec., 1852, p. 8, No. 404. ^American Art Union Transactions for 1846, p. 13. Reference to the fact that the distribution had been made appears in the Bulletin of the Union for August, 1849, in a long article concerning the work and life of Bingham. The length of this discussion in what was then the leading art magazine of the country shows no small amount of interest in the "Missouri Artist." 3 34 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. engravings of one or more American paintings and to purchase as many works of art as possible in both painting and sculpture by native or resident artists. (The Art Union bought only pictures exhibited at its gallery, 497 Broadway, New York, and approved by a committee.) Each member received at least one engraving in the year, and every five-dollar share he owned also gave him a chance of obtaining works in painting and sculpture which were distributed by lot. Editors of the leading papers all over the country were made honorary secretaries, and shares could be purchased through them. In 1849 the membership numbered more than ten thousand, and the Union was planning a distribution of Cole's Youth, the second in his series of the Voyage of Life, and also a volume of etchings illustrating Irving's tale of the Legend of Sleepy Hol- low.^ The engraving of the Jolly Flathoatmen by the Union, therefore, insured for it a wide circulation which created interest all over the country in the work of the young "Missouri Artist." The painting became the property of B. Van Schaick of New York in 1847.^ A list of paintings in Bing- ham's studio in 1879 included "the Jolly Flathoatmen, which more than a quarter of a century ago, having been published by the American Art Union of New York, first brought Mr. Bingham prominently before the artists and admirers of art of our own and other countries."^ Probably this is the paint- ing which was purchased at the sale of the Bingham estate in 1893'' and is now owned by Mrs. Thomas H. Mastin of Kansas City (PL XVIII). It is done in the style of the earliest of Bingham's other genre paintings which we know;^ but it ^Missouri Statesman, July 6, 1849. ^American Art Union Transactions for 1847, p. 32, No. 1. ^Missouri Statesman, Mar. 7, 1879. «See p. 107. •The light, flat and unnatural color agrees closely with the early pieces o the "election series" (see p. 53ff). GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 35 differs so markedly from the engraving that it would appear to be an early replica. It represents a flatboat floating down the river with a party of jolly boatmen on it. They have pulled up the long oars and are letting the boat drift with the gentle current. There are seven men on board, each with a distinctive attitude and character. One young fellow stands on the highest part of the boat dancing gaily, while an older man plays a fiddle, a boy beats a tin pan, and the rest look on with varying degrees of interest. Nearly all of the figures used are copied almost exactly from the artist's sketchbook now in the Mercantile Library, St. Louis. There is a vigorous life and sparkle about the whole work. We do not feel that the figures have been posing for hours, but it seems as if the boat had just drifted into view and the artist had caught the attitude of the whole group in a moment. As a matter of fact, Bingham never saw this exact scene. He often made rapid sketches of attitudes and then had a model stand in the position for more careful drawing. One man whom he used for a model tells of dressing according to directions and stand- ing in one position without moving for half an hour at a time. Only his own boyish interest in the artist's work, he declares, gave him the patience for the task.^ From these drawings Bingham built up his compositions, and he shows no little skill in their arrangement. Here, in the Jolly Flathoatmen, he has chosen a pyramidal effect. From the men sitting on the oars at the right and left the eye is led up by the fiddler and drummer to the center of interest, the dancer, who forms the apex of the pyramid. The mistake of placing the figures on opposite sides on the same levels or in the same attitudes is not made ; each figure is entirely different from all the others. The steep banks of the river, covered with shrubbery, lend a >Dr. Oscar F. Potter. 36 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. charming touch, and those away in the distance which we see at the bend of the river are properly subordinated in the hazy atmosphere. A good feeHng for perspective is shown, the water lies perfectly flat and everything takes its proper place in the picture. The coloring is not positive, but it is harmonious. The predominant tone is blue — the blue of the sky and its reflection in the quiet water. As stated above, the engraving (PI. XIX) published by the Art Union exhibits a number of variations from the painting owned by Mrs. Mastin. Most of the figures are slightly different; for example, the dancer does not wave his red handkerchief and the drummer wears a differently fashioned hat; an eighth figure, too, is at the back of the group. More careful attempts have been made at filling out the space; a shirt hung in the sun to dry, a coil of rope, a ladder and a small animal skin have been placed on the front part of the boat's deck. There are two sketches for the drummer in Bingham's sketchbook. One of them corre- sponds to the figure in the painting (PI. XX, 2) ; but the other corresponds as perfectly to the figure in the engraving. This is true also of the fiddler (PI. XX, 3), and the sketch we reproduce of the man seated on an oar at the right (PI. XX, 1) corresponds to the figure in the engraving. Together with the facts that the eighth figure in the engraving is thoroughly Binghamesque, that Bingham frequently repeated composi- tions with slight changes and that the picture bought by the Art Union came into the possession of a New York resident, this proves quite conclusively that all this change was not made by the engraver and that the painting owned by Mrs. Mastin is not the one from which the engraving was made. Mrs. Mastin's painting is probably the later one of the two; the most important part of the composition is repeated in it, while many of the details are omitted. Further, the characteristics Plate XX Mercantile Library, St. Louis SKETCHES USED IN JOLLY FLATBOATMEN GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 37 of the figures in Mrs. Mastin's painting rather than those in the other are used again in the Jolly Flathoatmen No. 2, painted a number of years later. So it would seem that Bing- ham considered it an improvement upon the one from which the engraving was made. In 1846 two other paintings by Bingham were listed by the American Art Union/ but no description is given and we find no further records of them. They are Boatmen on the Missouri, which in the regular distribution of the Union went to J. R. Macmurdo, New Orleans, and Landscape with Cattle, to Charles Wilkes, Washington, D. C. Bingham's mingling with his countrymen and his interest in all their activities, particularly politics, in which he always took a positive stand, soon brought upon him the necessity of political service. He was by no means an office-seeker; but he had such positive ideas as to party platforms that the Whigs, among whom he counted himself, saw in him a leader who would stand by his convictions under all circumstances. A statement made concerning him in these early days is to the point: "Mr. Bingham is not only a faithful painter of 'the human face divine,' but he also has powers of exposing on the stump and canvas the monstrosities of Loco-Focoism. He is a Whig 'dyed in the wool.' And when he was called upon in 1846 to become a Whig candidate to represent his county in the State Legislature, his desire to promote the principles which he believed right led him to accept the nomi- nation. The election returns gave four hundred and seventy- three votes for him and four hundred and seventy for Sapping- ton, his Democratic opponent, and he was declared elected. He took his seat in the House of Representatives, where he ^American Art Union Transactions for 1846, p. 31, No. 14, and p. 34, No. 131. ^Missouri Statesman, June 19, 1846. 38 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. was placed upon the standing committees for Federal Relations and Engrossed Bills. He also served on a number of special committees.^ His keen sense of humor did not forsake him even in such a dignified assemblage. Soon after the convening of the House, in the animated discussion which took place upon the question of printing a thousand German copies of the Gover- nor's message to the House, Bingham concurred with the mem- ber who had proposed the printing of the message, saying that he believed in affording to the Dutch every reasonable facility for obtaining light, that he was in large part a Dutchman himself and was in favor of the Dutch. He also argued that it was an economical measure; for the message of the Governor was all that they could need. If it were read with under- standing by them, all other knowledge would be superfluous. It was a godsend, being an abstract of all knowledge, the essence of all wisdom, the document of all documents calcu- lated to enlighten the human mind, particularly the mind of the Dutch .2 But soon after he had entered the Legislature, his seat was contested by his opponent on the ground that it had been obtained by means of illegal votes. Bingham cared little enough for the personal honor attached to the office to have given it up rather than go through the unpleasant trial; but he felt that he owed it to the people who had elected him to defend their rights. He attempted by the most honorable means to avoid the trial. He wrote to Sappington and sug- gested to him in a respectful manner that they dispense with the "laborious, expensive and unequal contest in the Legis- lature" by again submitting their claims to the people, which ^Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Missouri, 14th General Assembly, pp. 34, 114, 135. *Missouri Statesman, Nov. 27, 1846. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 39 he said he believed to be the only genuinely republican method, pledging himself that if he should be defeated by as much as one vote, he would vacate the seat to which he had been de- clared duly elected without an appeal to any other tribunal. But his opponent refused to accept such a proposition,^ choosing rather to entrust the decision to a House of Repre- sentatives largely Democratic — seventy-seven Democrats and twenty-three Whigs. Or was it, as he contended, because he conceived it to be his duty to those who he believed had honestly elected him to protect their rights? Whatever may have been his reasons for rejecting Bingham's proposal, the odds most certainly were against Bingham in the legislative body. Sappington employed Attorney-General B. F. String- fellow, one of the most prominent and able lawyers in Missouri, for his counsel. But Bingham served as his own attorney, and by his able management proved that his early study of law in the cabinet-maker's shop in Boonville had been an earnest and serious one. He spent a great deal of time and money in gathering evidence for the contest, and his opponent was equally active. The case was thoroughly investigated by the Committee on Elections. That body could not come to a unanimous agreement at the close of the examination of the evidence. But a majority of them decided that Bingham had received five illegal votes and Sappington eight ; and since the election returns had given Bingham a majority of three, the majority of the committee decided that he had actually been elected by a margin of six votes. At a second meeting of the committee one of the members changed his decision so that the vote stood: three that Bingham was elected, two that ^Letters written Sept. 8 and published in the Missouri Statesman, Oct. 2, 1846. 40 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. Sappington was elected, and two that it was a tie. And the committee adjourned with the agreement that such should be the decision rendered to the House and that it should be submitted in three different reports. The reports actually made to the House, however, were three for Bingham, three for Sappington, and one that the vote was a tie. That one member had again changed his mind.^ After the evidence had been presented to the House, General Stringfellow made a speech lasting several hours. He was followed by Bingham, who was equally lengthy and certainly as biting as anyone could well be in the character- istic speech to which he gave vent.^ As usual, he felt that so long as he was saying what he believed to be truthful, there was no need for leniency. A newspaper report in regard to the speech says: "He 'salted down' the whole Sappington family, Ex-Lt. Gov. Marmaduke (who was present) and the Attorney-General. He scattered the red-hot shot in every direction, and after getting through with the comments concerning one vote, he gave way to a motion to adjourn."^ For three days the House took up the consideration of the contest at every meeting, and, finally, on the eighteenth of December, declared Sappington elected. Much dissatis- faction was felt in regard to the decision, which seemed to many to have been made upon party prejudices rather than upon the evidence of the case."* Though stung to the quick by what he deemed unfair treatment, Bingham did not regret the loss of the position for its own sake. He went back to his home and again took up I Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Mo., 14th General Assembly, appendix, pp. 221-238. 'Speech published in the Missouri Statesman, Jan. 22, 1847. ^Missouri Statesman, Dec. 25, 1846. *Ibid., Dec. 25, 1846. Mr. O. B. Rollins. Plate XXI Athenaeum Museum, Pitts field RAFTSMEN PLAYING CARDS X w GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 41 his chosen work, better prepared for it than before because his "stumping" experiences during the campaign had given him many opportunities for observing the lives of his western countrymen in their poHtical phases. In 1847 a newspaper^ describes two of Bingham's paintings then on display in the rooms of Mr. Wool on Fourth Street, St. Louis, pictures representative of western river life. One of these, Lighter Relieving a Steamboat Aground, had been purchased for two hundred and fifty dollars by Mr. Yeatman of St. Louis, who granted the artist the privilege of sending it with the other painting to the Art Union. In the distance, aground on a sandbar, is a steamboat which has just been relieved of a portion of its cargo and the lighter or flatboat has been pushed out into the current, which carries it along without the use of oars or rudders. The flatboatmen are amusing themselves, some by listening to a tale of adventure told by one of their number, others by indulging in the contents of the jug and the pipe. The newspaper further states that the characters are in their countenances, dress and attitudes ''true to the life." Perhaps this is the same painting as the one allotted by the American Art Union in 1849 to Stephen E. Paine, New York, and listed under the title of Watching the Cargo.^ It is described in the Bulletin of the Union as a painting, thirty-six by twenty-six inches, representing ''a group of boatmen on the Missouri River, keeping watch over the cargo of a boat which has been wrecked. A box has been opened and its contents spread out to dry."^ The other painting mentioned in the St. Louis paper referred to above was called Raftsmen Playing Cards. It was considered by a critic who saw the two together to be the better one. Again ^St. Louis Republican, April 21, 1847. ^Transactions of the American Art Union for 1849, p. 50, No. 227. 'Bulletin of the American Art Union, Aug.-Nov., 1849, No. 227. 42 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. we have an indication, as in the case of Jolly Flathoatmen that there were two paintings originally. A painting (PI. XXI) and a lithograph (PI. XXII) represent the same central theme, but they differ a good deal in detail. The location of the painting from which the lithograph was made is not known, and we have no data by which to form a definite decision as to which of the two was the earlier. The description in the newspaper, however, agrees more closely with the lithograph, which is usually called In a Quandary. 'The other and, in our opinion, the better picture is a group on a raft, floating with the current. Two men are playing a game of cards well known in the West as three-up. Seated astride a bench, one has the ace and the other is extremely puzzled to know what to play upon it. As often occurs, he has two friends on either side of him, each of whom is giving advice as to which card he ought to play." In the lithograph there are just four figures, the oars are pulled up and the raft is floating with the current. The painting hangs in the Athenaeum Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was presented to the museum as the work of an unknown artist ; but a comparison of it with other of Bingham's works, together with the consideration that he often used the same figures in different pictures, leaves no doubt as to the authorship. The two card-players and the on-looker at the right are almost identical with the group in the lithograph and with the figures in the sketchbook (PI. XXIII, 2 and 3). The dejected figure on the floor at the extreme left is also a close copy of one in the sketchbook (PI. XXIII, 1), and it is used again later in Jolly Flathoatmen No. 2. The man standing behind the players is somewhat changed, and he has given up his pole to the boy who is guiding the boat. The men are placed farther back from the fore- ground, a few of the accessories about the boat are altered, and Plate XXIII Mercantile Library, St. Louis SKETCHES USED IN RAFTSMEN PLAYING CARDS Plate XXIV City Art Museum, St. Louis DR. OSCAR F. POTTER GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 43 the whole composition is more complicated. The method, frequently employed in Bingham's compositions a few years later, of building up a large mass at one side of the picture and a much smaller mass at the other is here carried out more fully than in the lithograph, and the whole is freer; so that it would seem that the Pittsfield picture is the later of the two, A painting of the same title. Raftsmen Playing Cards, was awarded by the Art Union in 1847 to Edwin Crosswell of Albany, New York. This was probably the picture referred to by the above newspaper description, for the same news- paper, as well as the Art Union organ, contains later a notice of the transaction by which the painting came into the hands of Edwin Crosswell.^ The lithograph is dated 1852. Aside from this dating, the copy that hangs in the Missouri Union Building bears upon it this inscription: '*In a Quandary. Lithographed by Regnier. To Major James S. Rollins of Missouri this print is respectfully dedicated by his most obedient servant Goupil and Company." The portrait of Dr. Oscar F. Potter (PI. XXIV), now living in St. Louis, who was Bingham's model for a good many of his figures, was painted in 1848 shortly after In a Quandary, in which he posed for the man with the pole and also the one at the right with the bare feet. The portrait represents the young man at the age of nineteen, not of a robust physique, but with a contemplative and intelligent face. The work shows some advance over earlier portraiture by the artist in the freer treatment of features and in the rendition of the texture of the flesh, hair and clothing. We are unable to notice any close resemblance between the portrait and the figures in the flatboat scene for which the youth served as a ^American Art Union Transactions for 1847, p. 36, No. 91. St. Louis Republican, Jan. 10, 1848. 44 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. model, except, perhaps, in the case of the man with the pole, whose face and, more particularly, hair are similar to the face and hair of the portrait. A painting called Stump Orator by Bingham was among those distributed by the Art Union in 1848. It was allotted to William Duncan, Savannah, Georgia.^ We know nothing more of it, but it is of interest to us as being the first notice we have of the political subject in Bingham's paintings. This phase was soon to become very important in his work as he came more and more into contact with it in actual life. In the summer of 1848 he was called upon a second time by the leading Whigs of his county to accept the nomination for the Representative of Saline in the State Legislature. He at first refused. But a little later, when E. D. Sappington was announced as the Democratic candidate, Bingham was ready to take up the fight against his old opponent; but this time he was elected by such a majority — twenty-six — that there was no danger of a contest before the Legislature.^ Upon the convening of the House, Bingham was again appointed, as he had been in 1846, upon the Committee on Federal Relations and also upon the Committee on Enrolled Bills. Aside from these two standing committees he again served on a large number of special committees. He spoke rarely in the ses- sions; but when he did speak, it was with firm decision and absolute fearlessness.^ He could not countenance anything which he believed to be injustice to anyone. Upon one occasion his indignation was thoroughly aroused by a report submitted to the House by the Inspectors of the Penitentiary containing a passage derogatory to the characters of the ^Transactions of the American Art Union for 1848, p. 62, No. 212. ^Missouri Statesman, May 12, July 7 and Aug. 11, 1848. ^Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Missouri, 1848, pp. 33, 43, 49, etc. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 45 volunteers who had enHsted in the Mexican War. The report accounted for the vacancies in the State Penitentiary by the employment of an "idle and vicious" class of people in the foreign war, adding that since the war was ended, all the prison would doubtless soon be needed. Bingham had felt from the first — and he had clearly announced his views from the "stump" to his constituents — that the war might have been honorably avoided ; but, as always, he held that the will of the majority should rule even when it called to war. And now, upon anyone in the House who attempted to defend the report in the least he heaped his biting indignation.^ His most important commission in the House, however, was that of serving upon the Committee on Federal Relations; for in this turbulent time the relations between the northern and southern states of the Union raised all-important questions. When the resolutions from the General Assemblies of Virginia and Florida, together with the Jackson Resolutions, were presented to the committee for its consideration, Bingham was one of the four who drew up the majority report, in which sentiment was expressed against the interference of Congress in the regulation of slave ownership in the states; but, at the same time, the rights of Congress in the matter were recog- nized, and faith and confidence in that body were expressed. This majority pledged themselves to stand by the Union, "come what may, whether prosperity or adversity, weal or woe," preferring the "glorious Union even with the Wilmot Proviso to its dissolution without it."^ And never in all the long struggle did Bingham once prove traitor to his pledge. Fifteen years later it was said by some of his friends that his ^Missouri Statesman, Jan. 19, 1849. ^Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Missouri. 1848. Majority Report of the Committee on Federal Relations, p. 392. 46 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. great speech against secession was the first defiant utterance against rebelHon in the Capitol of Missouri.^ In August and probably until the latter part of Sep- tember in 1849, Bingham was in New York. He had a studio at 115J^ Grand Street, and attention was called by the Art Union to his portfolio of sketches which might be seen by visitors. Evidently he had not given up his art work entirely while in the Legislature; for the Art Union had lately purchased one of his "clever pictures" and expected to have one or two •more by him upon exhibition in the course of that month, August.2 Indeed, we come upon quite a list of paintings just at this time. Their present location is unknown, but the descriptions given of some of them, though very brief, help us to form some idea of their general nature and also give us a glimpse of Bingham's treatment of some phases of Missouri life which we otherwise should have failed to know. Three paintings are described in a newspaper of 1849,^ one of them a scene on the Missouri called Woodyard. "The owner of the yard and his laborers are awaiting the arrival of a boat, and their anxiety to make a sale of their wood is strikingly delineated." The name of the second one is not given, but from its description: "It is the first painting we have seen in which the real characteristics of the boatmen on the wharf are truly portrayed," we may conclude that it is the painting that is listed in the Transactions of the American Art Union for the year 1849* as St. Louis Wharf, awarded to S. Pell, New York. This painting is further described in the Bulletin of the Union as follows: "(30x25) On the wharf are ^Kansas City Star, Oct, 6, 1901. 'Bulletin of the American Art Union, Aug.. 1849. The "clever picture" here referred to is evidently Raftsmen on the Ohio, which is listed in this number of the Bulletin and which we discuss below. *St. Louis Republican, Apr. 7, 1849. ^Transactions — , 1849, p. 50, No. 218. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 47 piles of merchandise upon which are seated boatmen and travelers; behind them are teamsters, and beside the levee is a steamboat, the 'Kit Carson.' The third painting men- tioned in the newspaper is a scene in a barroom. A politician is discoursing on the Wilmot Proviso to the jolly old landlord and an indifferent farmer; "a boy with his coat-tail turned up to the stove is reading a show bill." This is undoubtedly the painting which the Art Union awarded to John Boyd, Winstead, Connecticut, in 1849 and listed as County Politician. It is described as a painting twenty-four by twenty inches. "Three men are seated around a stove, one of whom is arguing some knotty point with an old traveler. Behind the stove a man is standing warming his back with his coat-skirts lifted."^ A Boatman, which through the Art Union went to "J," Albany, New York, is described briefly as a painting twenty by sixteen inches, representing ''a figure seated beside a pile of wood, on the banks of the Missouri."^ One other painting. Raftsmen on the Ohio, thirty-nine by thirty-six inches, was among the distributions of the Art Union in 1849. It went to James Key, Florence, Alabama, and the description of it is: "A man seated on a box is telling a story to three others as they are 'floating down the Ohio.' In the foreground on the raft are packs of shingles, boards and so forth. Other pictures of which we have but slight mention anywhere are Old Field Horse, listed in Tuckerman's Book of the Artists as belonging to the McGuire collection in Washing- ton, D. C, Lumbermen Dining, referred to in the St. Louis ^Bulletin — , Aug. -Nov., 1849. No. 218. ^Transactions — , 1849, p. 50, No. 232. Bulletin — , Aug.-Nov., 1849, No. 232. ^Transactions — for 1849, p. 51, No. 241. Bulletin — , Aug.-Nov., 1849, No. 241. ^Transactions — for 1849, p. 49, No. 196. Bulletin — , Aug.-Nov., 1849, No. 196. 48 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. Republican of November 27 and November 28, 1847, and The Horse Thief, mentioned by Miss Simonds.^ Two paintings owned by the art firm, McCaughen and Burr of St. Louis, called Captured hy Indians and Belated Wayfarers are signed and dated. The first is dated 1848 and the second 1852. There is some doubt as to the authenticity of these,^ and the signature and dating rather increase the doubt; for we know of no other painting signed and dated by Bingham. It seems probable, however, that he may have painted some Indian scenes, since such were truly a part of early western life. These are undoubtedly the pictures to which Miss Simonds refers as White Women Stolen hy Indians and Emigrants Resting at Night. Both, she says, are night scenes with campfires.^ By the twenty-eighth of September, 1849, Bingham was in Columbia, Missouri, working upon portraits, among them a "fullsized" representation of Dr. Wm. Jewell of William Jewell College at Liberty, Missouri.* This portrait was given by the will of Dr. Jewell upon his death in 1852 to William Jewell College, where it hangs at the present time in the entrance to the library. In the same will a smaller portrait, probably painted as a study for the larger one, was bequeathed to Dr. Jewell's grandson.^ It was probably during this same sojourn in Columbia that Bingham painted a portrait of Dr. Lathrop, President of the University of Missouri. In the latter part of 1850 it was placed in the hands of the women of Columbia to be delivered to the Board of Curators of the University as a gift from the artist whenever that body should •Simonds, Miss May, A Pioneer Painter — published in the American Illustrated Methodist Magazine, v. VIII, Oct., 1902. *Dr. John Pickard. (The writer has not seen the pictures.) 'Simonds, Miss May, A Pioneer Painter. ^Missouri Statesman, Sept. 28, 1849. ^Ibid., Aug. 20. 1852. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 49 see fit to call for it. Whether it was an oversight or for some other reason, the work was not called for until nearly nine years later, at which time it was promptly delivered and hung in the chapel of the University.^ It was destroyed in the University fire of 1892. Bingham's wife, Elizabeth Hutchison Bingham, had died on the twenty-ninth of November, 1848, leaving him with three children, a daughter and two sons. Two sons had died previous to the wife's death, and one of the other two died soon after. December 2, 1849, Bingham was married to Eliza K. Thomas, daughter of Professor R. S. Thomas of Columbia. She is said to have been beautiful and intelligent and an excellent mother to her husband's children.^ About the middle of the following year, 1850, Bingham was working in St. Louis. A local paper gives us a description of a painting which he was then engaged upon: "Mr. George C. Bingham, 'the Missouri Artist,* at his studio in this place is about completing, for George W. Austen, Esq., of New York, Treasurer of the American Art Union, one of the choicest specimens of art with which we have met. It is of rare con- ception and most graphically delineated. The painting represents a western scene — Shooting for the Beef — and presents a group of characters with life-like fidelity. There are seen the eager marksmen in the attire of the backwoodsman; the log cabin at the cross-roads, with sign above the door lintel. Tost Office Grocery;' the prize in contest, a fat ox, chained to a stump hard by ; a beautiful landscape in prospec- tive, and — but a description is impossible. The painting is thirty-six by forty-nine inches. Every feature on the canvas ^IMd., Dec. 27, 1850, and Aug. 12, 1859. »I6id., Dec. 29, 1848, and Dec. 7, 1849. Nefif, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. 4 50 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. is instinct with life. Indeed it seems an incarnation rather than painting, and gives us reason to exult in the genius of Bingham, a native Artist of our own state. Of all the contemporary criticisms we have of Bingham one of the most fair, because untinged by local prejudice, is made by the Art Union in connection with this painting: ''Mr. Bingham, the Western Artist — This gentleman, whose success in delineat- ing western scenes and characters, and particularly the boatmen of the Mississippi, we have had occasion several times to mention, has lately arrived in this city, where he intends to remain for the present. He brings with him a few pictures, one of which, representing Shooting for the Beef, has several striking points. Bingham's chief merit is his decided nation- ality and accurate reading of character. His works have certain faults in color and handHng, which we think his residence here will enable him to correct, and which, by the way, are much less conspicuous than his want of advantages would have led one to expect."^ The painting. Shooting for the Beef, was later purchased by the Art Union and was sold at auction along with many other paintings after the Union's former method of distribution had in 1852 been declared illegal by New York courts on the ground that it was in contravention to the statutes prohibiting lotteries.^ We have no record of the purchasers at this sale. Other paintings by Bingham that were included in the Art Union auction sale and of which we have no records or descriptions further than those contained in the Bulletin of the Art Union are, with their descriptions, as follows: ''Cattle Piece (36x2634) — Oxen and cows feeding on a meadow." >From a St. Louis paper copied in the Bulletin of the American Art Union, July, 1850, p. 64/. ^Bulletin — , Dec, 1850, p. 157. ^Supplementary Bulletin — , Dec, 1851, and Dec, 1852. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 51 Fishing on the Mississippi (36x26) — Three men are stationed on the rocks at the left, engaged in this sport. A flat-boat is coming down the stream." ''The Squatters (30x25) — A family has built its log cabin in the midst of a clearing, and commenced housekeeping." ''The Wood-Boat (30x25) — The boat is drawn up to the shore. The boatmen are resting themselves on the banks." "Trapper's Return (36x26) — The figures are descending the river in a dug-out, at the bows of which is a bear chained."^ These paintings were all listed by the Art Union in 1851, so they were probably purchased while Bingham was in New York in the winter of 1850-51. He had gone to New York in the latter part of 1850, and he returned to Columbia, Missouri, in the middle of May of the following year. During his absence he had painted his Daniel Boone Coming Through Cumberland Gap,^ a more decid- edly historical composition than he had previously under- taken. The event celebrated is the emigration of the famous Daniel Boone with his family from North Carolina to Ken- tucky. The scene is laid in a mountain gap, as the subject suggests, and the dramatic, grandiose treatment of the land- cape, as the present state of the painting shows it (PI. XXV), suggests that the artist must have been influenced by the early Hudson River landscape school. We are reminded particularly of Thomas Cole, engravings of whose Voyage of Life were then scattered broadcast over the country, and the originals of which Bingham may have seen while in the East. The great rocky cliffs on each side with the mysterious dark- ness back under their projecting crags, the blasted tree trunks, the lowering clouds darkening parts of the sky emphasize the danger of the undertaking and the bravery of the hero of the ^Bulletin — , May-Dec, 1851, Nos. 52, 120, 130, 152, 173; Supplementary Bulletin — , Dec, 1852, p. 3jf. Nos. 41, 53, 162, 194, 221, 352. ^Missouri Statesman, May 23, 1851. 52 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. picture. The design of the composition is said to have been based upon the account given in Marshall's History of Ken- tucky',^ but we may be sure that Bingham did not hesitate to use his imagination coupled with his knowledge of the life and costumes of early days. Boone, a middle-aged man in picturesque costume of moccasins and homespun clothes, heads the procession, looking intently to the front, grasping with his left hand the butt of his rifle, which rests upon his shoulder, and with his right hand guiding the horse upon which his weary wife sits. At his left and a little behind him walks a companion (PI. XXVI, 1) of about his own age. He, too, feels the responsibility of the lives at stake, and he strides forward, his whole body alert and his gun held in such a posi- tion that he can use it upon an instant's warning. A third man near the front has stooped down for a moment to fasten his moccasin, and behind comes the company on horses, with kettles, buckets and other necessary household equipment. The principal light falls through a gap at the left upon the group in the foreground. The white horse and the light yellow suit of Boone's make, in the center of the picture, the focus of highest light. Little flecks of light also fall upon other figures near the front and upon the bare branches and tree trunks at the sides. The work is by no means an exact copy of nature, but it is very effective, telling the story which the artist wished it to tell. The paint is laid on more thickly than in his earlier canvases, but it is done with the same care- ful, smooth brush-work and with little value as to color. In June of 1853, Bingham was exhibiting the picture in St. Louis. He proposed to dispose of it by raffle. Three hundred shares were to be sold at two dollars each, as the work was valued at six hundred dollars; two hundred of the chances ^md.. May 23. 1851. Plate XXVI From an Engraving EMIGRATION OF DANIEL BOONE GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 53 had already been taken. It was just the year previous to this, as we have seen, that the American Art Union's method of distribution by lot was condemned. But most people did not feel averse to this kind of lottery, and it was even urged (we do not know whether the suggestion was followed) that the literary societies of the University purchase a number of shares, so that they might stand a good chance of obtaining the Emigration of Daniel Boone for the University.^ The high estimate which was placed upon this work by some contemporary critics is shown by the fact that this painting was the first (it is believed) done by an American artist of which Goupil and Company, prominent engravers in Paris, purchased the copyright privilege of engraving. They had already engraved several of the genre painter Mount's pictures and probably some others but had not purchased the copyrights.^ The canvas was sent to Paris immediately after its completion, and the engraving (PI. XXVI, 2) made from it shows us what the form of the original composition probably was; for an examination of the painting (PI. XXV) indicates that it has been changed a good deal. It is very difficult to discover signs of the re-painting in the darker parts; but in the lighter parts, the sky particularly, it is easy to trace forms of branches that have been painted out. Daniel Boone and the figures immediately around him have remained the same, but some of the figures in the rear have been changed. The greatest alteration, however, has been made in the land- scape, which has become much more effective in romantic, mysterious feeling. October 31, 1851, a visitor to Bingham's studio in Colum- bia tells of seeing four of his late pictures, County Election, 'Ibid., Oct. 29, 1852, and June 17, 1853, from the St. Louis News. ^Ibid., May 23, 1851. 54 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. Candidate Electioneering, Chess Players, and a landscape, Scene on the Ohio. The first of these is described at length and of all four the visitor says: "These paintings are executed with a master's hand, and are well worth the examination of the connoisseurs of the art. The political scenes are original and bold and present a class of subjects entirely new."^ The painting alluded to here under the title of Candidate Electioneering is probably the one called elsewhere The Canvass and generally known today as Canvassing for a Vote. The Canvass is spoken of by a writer in the New York Mirror of September, 1852, along with The Election (both titles he admits of having "coined" himself) and is described as "a small cabinet piece of some four or five figures, forming an out-of-door group, which is composed of the candidate or his friend electioneering for him, endeavoring to circumvent an honest old countryman, who has by his side a shrewd old fellow, who cannot be readily taken in."^ There is nothing in this descrip- tion which disagrees with the picture we know as Canvassing for a Vote. Though there is notice in 1848 of a composition called Stump Orator included in the distribution of the American Art Union, the County Election and Canvassing for a Vote represent the beginning, as far as the work we are familiar with is concerned, of a complete series of political scenes, inspired no doubt by the artist's own experiences in the politi- cal field. Some contend that he never represented actual individuals in his compositions, that his types are purely representative. They are representative and are probably not exact portraits of individuals whom Bingham knew, and yet we know that he made sketches from life and then arranged his iJ6id., Oct. 31, 1851. This article was copied in the Bulletin of the American Art Union, Dec, 1851, p. 151. ^New York Mirror, copied in the Missouri Statesman, Sept. 10, 1852. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 55 compositions with these sketches as the basis. ^ And some contemporaries of the artist pick out in his pictures people who were prominent in that period. Thus, in Canvassing for a Vote (PI. XXVII), Dr. Potter states that the candidate putting forth the arguments is Bingham himself and the man to whom he is directing his remarks is a certain Mr. Piper. Another version has it that the candidate is Claiborne Fox Jackson, the hotel-keeper is Captain Pierce and the hotel is the old tavern at Arrow Rock.^ The scene is just outside the village hotel, as is announced by the signboard. The enthusiastic politician has dismounted from his horse and pulled up a chair on the flagstones close to two men of sharply contrasting types. The jolly inn-keeper, attracted by the talk, has come up behind the others to listen. The audience is not yet convinced, but the man in whom the speaker is most interested seems to have been struck by a new phase of the question, something he had not thought of before, and the candidate sees a possibility of winning him. The County Election (PI. XXVIII), is one of the best known and most popular works by Bingham. It excited a great deal of comment during the months that it was being painted and for several years afterward. October 31, 1851, we have notice of the artist's having been at work upon the canvas constantly for three months; January 9, 1852, it was not yet quite finished; and by March 19 of the same year it was ready for the engraver.^ The painting, which now hangs in the Mercantile Library, St. Louis, occupies a canvas of about three by four feet and includes about sixty figures, most of which are quite distinctly shown and well characterized, ^Bulletin of the American Art Union, Aug., 1849, pp. 10-12. See also above p. 35. 'Mountjoy, Mr. Shannon, in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Nov. 6, 1904. ^Missouri Statesman, Oct. 31, 1851; Jan. 9, and Mar. 19, 1852. 56 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. but they are so arranged that the interesting details do not spoil the effect of the whole. People of the time in which the picture was painted took great delight in it because it was so full of the spirit of the subject, one of the wonders being that so many incidents instinct with the life of election day could be collected in so small a space. Some thought the most remark- able characteristic of the work was shown in the fact that all who looked at the picture seemed at once to recognize some old acquaintances in the various groups and were disposed to fancy that they were seeing actual portraits. "We saw most unmistakably an old county court judge of the interior, who may invariably be seen on 'election day' perched upon the courthouse fence, discoursing with the learning and authority which are inseparable from high official position upon the infallibility and super-excellence of the 'Democratic' party. There he sits in the identical place and attitude in Bingham's picture, so true a copy that we are sure, were the original to see it, he would feel insulted at the artist's presumptuous transfer of such an unapproachable greatness to vulgar canvas."^ The election is taking place at the side of the picture to the spectator's right. Here, in the porch of the courthouse (said by some to be the wooden courthouse at Arrow Rock, by others that at Marshall), are gathered the clerks and other officials. Boards are nailed across from post to post to sepa- rate these officers from the crowd outside. One voter is on the top step, where, reaching over the partition, he places his hand on the Bible held by the judge (said to be an Ex-Governor of Missouri) and is sworn in. A citizen might vote in any town- ship he chose; but he had first to swear, among other things, that he had voted in no other precinct. Evidently there was ^Ibid., Jan. 9, 1852, from the St. Louis Intelligencer. Plate XXIX Mercantile Library, St. Louis SKETCHES USED IN COUNTY ELECTION Plate XXX Mercantile Library, St. Louis SKETCHES USED IN COUNTY ELECTION GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 57 no law in regard to electioneering within a hundred feet of the polls; for plenty of it is being done here and that with great earnestness. The dignitary with the silk hat, who, with a low bow, hands his card to a friend by way of soliciting his vote is recognized as Bingham's old opponent, Mr. Sappington. At the extreme left of the picture is the cider and gingerbread stand, where something stronger than cider apparently may be had, judging from the appearance of several unfortunate individuals. In the open space in the foreground two boys, one (PI. XXIX, 1) said to be Bingham's son, are playing mumble-the-peg. Many of the figures used here are copied with but slight changes from the sketches in the sketchbook. For example, one of the boys playing mumble-the-peg (PI. XXIX, 1), the man at the left carrying off his intoxicated friend (PI. XXIX, 2 and 3), another sufferer in the lower right-hand corner sitting on a barrel (PI. XXX, 1), the negro pouring cider (PI. XXX, 3), an old man coming down the steps from voting (PI. XXX, 2), and two of the group of three standing figures just below the voter's railing (PI. XXX, 4). Much is said about the figures in Bingham's paintings and that justly, for they are remarkably full of character, and they form the part of the pictures in which the artist manifestly was most interested. But the setting of the scenes is worth noticing. The village streets in which these political scenes take place are convincingly represented, the perspective is correct and a good feeling for atmosphere is shown. Bingham went to St. Louis in the winter of 1851 and in his studio there continued the work on the County Election and other compositions. ^ He did not give his entire attention to these genre paintings; portraiture demanded a great deal of his time now, as always. Early in 1852, we find him engaged ^Ihid., Oct. 31, 1851, and Jan. 9, 1852, from the St. Louis Intelligencer. 58 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. principally in this branch, making portraits of notable resi- dents of St. Louis, which a contemporary describes as of the highest possible truth of feature and expression. One of them, representing a state judicial dignitary, conveyed to the one who saw it the impression of "identity" rather than of "mere resemblance." "The 'old judge' himself is there, with his benevolent and intellectual face, looking as much at home in a gilt frame as if he had never been anywhere else."^ Until the last of March, 1852, the artist remained in St. Louis; and when he had finished the County Election, he began to take up subscriptions at ten dollars each for engrav- ings of it. He exhibited the picture in St. Louis, Columbia and probably a number of other places before going East with it, encouraging subscribers, says a newspaper notice of the day, by giving one chance on the original painting of Emigration of Daniel Boone (or, if the winner should prefer, the valuation of the picture, six hundred dollars) for each subscription paid in advance.^ But if this plan was carried out, the successful party must have chosen the six hundred dollars; for the painting in question was, as we have seen above, put up for raffle a year later by the artist. In June, 1852, Bingham went as a delegate from the eighth district to the Whig national convention in Baltimore, probably remaining a little time thereafter in the interest of his art.^ It may have been during this visit in the East that he made arrangements with John Sartain, the Philadelphia engraver, for the engraving of the County Election. Such arrangements had been made, at least, as early as October of this year. In October the painting was again exhibited in '/ftid., Jan. 9, 1852, from the St. Louis Intelligencer. *Ibid., Oct. 29, 1852. *md., June 4, 1852. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 59 Columbia and finally in New Orleans, where it was sold in April to Robert J. Ward of Louisville for one thousand dollars, with the reservation that the artist should be allowed to exhibit it in Cincinnati and other cities and to leave it with Sartain for the time required to make an engraving of it.^ The preparation of the plate must have been begun in the latter part of 1852, for in February, 1854, we have record that Sartain had been working upon it for eighteen months past and in September that he had been working upon it for about two years.^ The records are somewhat conflicting as to the exact amount of this time Bingham spent in Philadelphia; but they agree in locating him there, overseeing the work, during the last months of 1853 and the first of 1854 until it was completed in June of the latter year.^ Subscribers had been promised their copies of the engraving some months before this, and the delay was accounted for upon the ground that Sartain was bestowing most minute labor upon the plate, which he intended should be his chef d' ouvre in engraving. In the spring of 1854 a proof from the engraving was exhibited and attracted much attention in the Rotunda of the Pennsyl- vania Academy of Fine Arts, where it appeared as one of the works collected annually and shown for the first time to the public by that institution. But the copies were not ready for distribution until September of that year.'* There is a question, again, as to whether the painting of the County Election with which we are familiar, that in the Mercantile Library, is the original or a replica. This painting was given to the library, together with two other canvases »J6td., Oct. 29, 1852, and Apr. 22 and June 10, 1853. «76id., Feb. 3, and Sept. 22, 1854. •/bid., June 30 and Sept. 15, 1854. *Ihid., Feb. 3 and Sept. 22, 1854. Philadelphia Register, Sept. 7, 1854 — copied in the Missouri Statesman, Sept. 22, 1854. 60 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. of the "election series" in 1862 by John H. Beach, who was then president of the Library Board. ^ He had bought them from Bingham upon the advice of A. J. Conant, an artist and a friend of Bingham's, whom the latter had asked to help in selling the pictures.^ It seems hardly probable that Bingham would have had the picture again in ten years after it had been sold in Kentucky, and yet the one in the Mercantile Library agrees quite perfectly with the engraving. Again, in 1879 the County Election was mentioned in a list of paintings then in the artist's studio.^ And in May, 1895, a painting referred to as ''Election Day in Independence, Missouri — an illustration of western life before the war," was on exhibition and offered for sale in Boston.^ So there must have been at least one replica and probably two. While in Philadelphia in the latter part of 1853, Bingham began work upon another composition in the "election series," the County Canvass,^ better known today as Stump Speaking (PI. XXXI). The statesman-artist, as Bingham has often been called, must have had in mind such occasions as the notable Whig convention at Rocheport when he placed his speaker (said to be E. D. Sappington) on this platform out under a great tree, with the crowds of people gathered around showing various degrees of interest. On the platform behind the speaker sits a big fat personage, whom we are told is Ex-Governor M. M. Marmaduke, so accurately portrayed that he felt insulted. Another man sitting beside him taking notes is thought by some to be Bingham himself. The general arrangement of the composition is very much the same as ^Mercantile Library Report, 1862. 'Letter from A. J. Conant to Miss Simonds, Aug. 3, 1902. *Missouri Statesman, Mar. 7, 1879. ^Missouri Democrat (Boonville, Mo.), May 3, 1895. •Missouri Statesman, Nov. 18, 1853. Plate XXXII Mercantile Library, St. Louis SKETCHES USED IN STUMP SPEAKING GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 61 that of the County Election. One is just the reverse of the other. In Stump Speaking the highest point and the center of interest is at the left, while in the other it is at the right. There is, again, an open space in the center foreground, where boys are playing. Much skill is shown in the handling of figures so as to lead the eye easily from one to another and always to bring it, eventually, no matter where it starts in, to the face of the speaker (PI. XXXII, 1), who leans forward with his whole body in the attitude characteristic of one who is trying with all his power to convince his listeners. The man imme- diately in front of the speaker's stand, with his head resting on his cane and even his dog in an attitude suggestive of his "brown study" (PI. XXXII, 2) ; the younger fellow out in the crowd at the speaker's left who has paid about one visit too many to the hard cider keg (PI. XXXII, 3); and the tall man in the immediate foreground, who is on the speaker's side to start with and feels that every word being uttered is precious, are some representative figures, if one may call any representative in this large group, in which each one is so entirely different from every other. By September 22, 1854, the painting was complete and had been placed in the hands of the engraver, Gautier in Paris.^ It was probably this painting which was exhibited in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1860, under the title of Before the Election. It was sold to John H. Beach, who presented it in 1862 to the Mercantile Library, where it now hangs.^ Bingham had probably not yet completed his Stump Speaking when he began his third large canvas of this series. September 7, 1854, a Philadelphia paper mentions the superior quaUty of the then unfinished painting 6/ the An- ^Ibid., Sept. 22, 1854. Gautier's signature is on the engravings. 'Mercantile Library Report, 1862. 62 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. nouncement of the Result of the Election, or The Verdict of the People.^ The work may have been so nearly completed that it could be left in the East when Bingham returned t,o Mis- souri; for September 14, 1855, we have a notice that the artist expected to receive the picture from New York in time for the county fair.^ He planned to have an engraving made of it, and subscriptions for copies had already been opened by May of 1856; but for some reason the plan was not carried out until 1870, when he sent a large photograph of the painting to Goupil and Company in Paris that it might be engraved. After the work had been done, two proofs were sent to Bing- ham, who, after examining them, ordered five thousand copies. The order reached Paris at about the time of the Franco- Prussian attack, and the company's building, with all its contents, was destroyed. So these two proofs are the only copies ever made.^ But the artist painted a replica of the original, so that there are two paintings now in existence, one in the Mercantile Library at St. Louis (acquired in 1862) and the other owned by Mr. J. W. S. Peters of Kansas City. In a letter written by Rollins Bingham, son of the artist, in 1902, it is stated that the painting owned by Mr. Peters, which was purchased for two hundred dollars at the administrator's sale of the Bingham pictures in 1893, is the replica and that the one in the Mercantile Library is the original.'* This statement is borne out by a comparison of the two paintings with the engraving (PI. XXXIII). The one in the Mercantile Library agrees with it quite faithfully in the details, while the one owned by Mr. Peters (PI. XXXIV), shows a good ^Missouri Statesman, Sept. 22, 1854, copied from the Philadelphia Register of Sept. 7. ^Ibid., Sept. 14, 1855. ^Mr. C. B. Rollins. 'Letter from Rollins Bingham to Miss Simonds, June 18. 1902. GENRE PAINTING AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 63 deal of alteration. Among many minor changes, such as slight variation of dress, an interesting group of a negro woman and a little boy have been added at the right, the rather unpleasing and monotonous phalanx of men stretching across this side of the picture has been broken up, and the gradations of light and shade and atmosphere are treated in a more successful manner. The size and color of the two paintings, however, the one in the Mercantile Library being the larger, darker and duller, would indicate, by the closer resemblance to the work of later years, that this one is the later painting.^ The picture is an embodiment of the artist's belief in the submission of the people to the will of the majority, alluded to above. The result of the election is being announced from the porch of the courthouse, which is enclosed, as in the County Election, by boards nailed from one post to another. The scene is laid in a larger town this time, however. Some members of the crowd sit in utter dejection, while others, delighted with the news, are shouting, laughing and throwing their hats by way of expressing their approval. A water- melon is being served up at the right, and a negro comes in at the left, pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with keg and jug which explain the unbalanced condition of some of the men. The sunlight sifts in at the left, falling in spots upon the crowd, those in the foreground getting the most, as their importance justifies. Over the whole scene float the stars and stripes in the afternoon breeze, and down the street we get a view which has been well compared to those of the old Dutch Kirmess scenes. 2 »See p. 68. 'Parsons, Mrs. Helen R., Missouri's Greatest Painter, in the Kansas City Public Library Quarterly, July, 1901. 64 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. September 14, 1855, Bingham was spending most of his time on portraiture. He had opened a studio in the Grand ^ Jury room of the courthouse at Columbia and was engaged upon a number of portraits.^ By the fourteenth of November 1 he was in Jefferson City and had taken a room in the Capitol, ' where he remained for a month or more painting portraits. Incidentally, he exhibited in his studio there the Verdict of the People.'^ Early in December he spoke in a Whig meeting in the Capitol.^ March 14, 1856, he was in Columbia again, | engaged upon a historical painting, Washington Crossing the ; Delaware"^ (PI. XXXV), no doubt inspired by Leutze's popular representation of the same subject, which it resembles markedly both in composition and in purpose. For many years the picture remained unfinished, and not until eighteen years | after its beginning was it actually completed.^ It is a large | canvas, and, like Leutze's, it is crowded and confused and ; wholly impossible as far as truth to nature is concerned. I The whole purpose of the work is to glorify the hero, Washing- ton, and to commemorate the event represented. The composition is arranged in the form of a pyramid, with Washington on a white horse forming the apex. About him | are grouped his men, engaged in driving the boat to shore by i pushing vigorously with their oars against blocks of ice. | Other boats with their crews are subordinated to this one. ' The picture is less pleasing than most of Bingham's work be- ^ cause so grandiose and confused. It is not often that Bing- ham's compositions seem confused, even when there are a great many figures in them. ^Missouri Statesman, Sept. 14, 1855. , *Ibid., Nov. 23, 1855. *Ibid., Dec. 14, 1855. 1 *Ibid., Mar. 14, 1856. I »Mrs. Birch, contemporary friend of the artist. j DUSSELDORF PERIOD. 65 CHAPTER V. DUSSELDORF PERIOD (1856-60). An item copied from a St. Louis paper in a Columbia publication of May 16, 1856, states that the artist would leave for the East in a few days and would soon start for Europe.^ Other records state that he started sometime in 1856.2 While in Europe he visited Paris, London and Berlin. The annual catalogue of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for 1857 contains in its exhibition list a picture by Bingham called The First Music Lesson, owned by Edward P. Mitchell, and states that the artist was then in Paris. But most of his time abroad was spent in Diisseldorf; for it was to Diisseldorf that American artists were going at this time. Leutze spent twenty years in the quiet little Dutch city, and Mount and Woodville, two genre painters, also spent much time there. The school that had grown up in this center was of a literary character, caring little for artistic color or atmosphere, but laying stress upon the arrangement of stage scenes to make compositions that would tell stories. So we readily see why Bingham was attracted to it. His love of sincere, simple life, however, saved him from the insipid, sentimental work characteristic of such leading members of the school as Lessing and Hildebrant. Bingham's was the only American family resident in Diisseldorf, and to their pleasant home they invited young American artists and students who came to the city. It is said that hardly an evening passed that there was not a merry ^Missouri Statesman, May 16, 1856, from the St. Louis Republic. >Whitney, History of Kansas City, Mo., v. I, p. 606. Davis and Durrie, History of Missouri, p. 470, etc. 5 66 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. gathering in their parlor. Bingham was in the habit of examining the hotel registers and calling at once upon any who were registered from America, insisting upon their making their home with him and his family. He did not neglect the education of his son and daughter while abroad; but for his own part, he did not consider it worth while to spend his time learning the new languages. He carried on what conversation was necessary by hastily sketching pictures in a notebook which he always carried with him. Because of his success by this means, all the family's shopping was soon entrusted to him.^ How his unique actions might appear to others never occurred to him ; his mind was usually so preoccupied that he did not think of appearance. Many stories are told of instances of what is usually termed his "absentmindedness." Upon one occasion he put on his coat wrong side out and started toward town, engrossed in his own thoughts. The coat had a Scotch plaid lining, and, as he proceeded on his way, a large and larger crowd of mis- chievous boys collected in his wake, hooting and jeering with their foreign tongue in impish derision. And Bingham, though he noticed the commotion, did not realize that he was the cause of it until, still followed by the gamins, he reached his own door and was enlightened by a member of the family December, 1857, Bingham was working in Diisseldorf upon two full-length portraits of Washington and Jefferson for the Capitol of Missouri, and also a large picture of Jolly Flathoatmen? The portraits of Washington and Jefferson were, according to a report dated February 14, 1857, in the iLetter from Mrs. Emma King Turner, granddaughter of Bingham, to Miss Simonds, February 27, 1902. »Letter from Mrs. Alice King Newton, granddaughter of Bingham, to her sister, Mrs. Turner. 'Missouri Statesman, Dec. 18, 1857, from the Fulton Telegraph. DUSSELDORF PERIOD. 67 Journal of the House of Representatives, contracted for by a committee from the House in the summer of 1856, and were to be ready for delivery on or before the first of December, 1858. This report also states that Bingham was at the time in Diisseldorf engaged upon the work. By January 28, 1859, he had reached Jefferson City with the two portraits.^ And since they, with all the other Bingham work in the State Capitol, were destroyed in the late fire (1912), we shall have to follow the opinion of others concerning them. One who saw the Jefferson portrait just after it had reached Jefferson City was eloquent in his praise of it. He considered it the masterpiece of the artist, "an incarnation," full of life and charm.2 ^^^^ head is said to have been copied from Stuart's portrait of Jefferson painted in 1804 and owned in 1856 by Governor Cole of Philadelphia, who gave Bingham a room in his house where he made the copy from which the life-sized portrait was painted, also furnishing him with information concerning the costume of the distinguished statesman.^ From this we infer that the artist received the commission soon after or just before starting East in the summer of 1856, and that he delayed in Philadelphia to make a study for at least one of the portraits before going to Europe. His study for the head of Washington, a copy of Stuart's famous Athe- naeum portrait, also was probably done at this time. This copy and that of Stuart's Martha Washington (both are now in the Mercantile Library, St. Louis) are painted with the most sketchy technique which Bingham ever used in any known examples of his painting. Perhaps this was due in part to the fact that he was doing the work for studies, not for finished pictures. And yet when we consider that in his ^Ibid., Jan. 28, 1859. ^Ibid., Feb. 4, 1859, from a Jefferson City correspondent. 'See note 2. 68 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. sketchbook we find most things carefully finished, it seems that it must have been due in greater part to the artist whom he was copying. Gilbert Stuart, that greatest of American portrait painters until comparatively recent times, did his work very sketchily, giving a wonderful charm and feeling of atmosphere, some of which Bingham has caught in his copies. The final portrait of Washington the contemporary who described the one of Jefferson had not seen, as the frame had been injured in the transportation from Diisseldorf, and it could not be hung until repaired. But others who saw it assigned it also a high rank.^ The Jolly Flathoatmen mentioned above as one of the compositions upon which the artist was at work in Diisseldorf and described in the article referred to as a large painting is probably the painting now in the Mercantile Library in St. Louis which is generally designated as Jolly Flathoatmen No. 2. It is a larger canvas than the County Election and Stump Speaking and about the same size as the last of that series in the Mercantile Library, the Verdict of the People. It has the same dull coloring also as this one. Bingham had been influenced by followers of the Diisseldorf school in the eastern states before he went to Europe ; so we see no abrupt change at this time. A much greater change may be seen by a com- parison with the Emigration of Daniel Boone, which, though lacking in naturalistic color, presents a greater variety of values and colors and a lighter general tone than later work. As compared with the first Jolly Flathoatmen this second composition is, again, much darker and less attractive. Bing- ham seems to have become still more interested in individuals, and so he has subordinated practically everything else to them. He brings the flatboat into the immediate foreground. ^Missouri Statesman, Feb. 4 and Feb. 25, 1859. DUSSELDORF PERIOD. 69 and the little view we get of the stream and bank is crowded with the boats and wharves of a river town. The flatboat, too, is overcrowded with figures — nineteen in all — whereas there are only seven in the earlier work. The central theme is almost the same in the two. In the later one the dancer, the fiddler and the drummer are more nearly like those of the early painting owned by Mrs. Mastin than those of the engrav- ing. It is interesting to notice the use of spots of white paint for the high lights and black for the low in the sketch of the drummer (PI. XX, 2), giving an animated effect. In the left foreground is the same dejected figure (PI. XXIII, 1), that we found in the Pittsfield painting of Flathoatmen Playing Cards (PI. XXI). The Jolly Flathoatmen No. 2, together with the three canvases of the "election series" owned by the Mercantile Library, was given a place at the World's Columbian Expo- sition at Chicago in the gallery of the Retrospective Exhibit of American Art among less than a hundred canvases by about sixty artists of the last half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. Such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Benjamin West, Washington Allston, John Singleton Copley and Charles W. Peale were represented.^ When he returned from Europe early in the year 1859, Bingham brought with him also a needlework bust portrait of Washington, about fourteen by twenty-four inches, done with silk floss by his little daughter, Clara, then but fourteen years old. It was a copy from the full-length portrait of Washington by her father, and the colors and tones of silk were so deftly managed that at a short distance the work had the appearance of an oil painting. This work was presented to the House of Representatives by Bingham as a gift from his daughter,'^ 'Parsons, Mrs. Helen R., op. ext. ^Journal of the House of Representatives, 1859. 70 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. and it occupied a place immediately above the speaker's chair from that time. Though much faded, it is still in existence.^ Because of her ability for minute copying, Bingham believed that his daughter would make a good engraver, and he gave her some training in that line. But she was married at the age of twenty or twenty-one and gave up the career which her father had hoped she would follow. February 14, 1859, Bingham received a commission from the State Senate to paint a military equestrian portrait of Andrew Jackson and a full-length portrait of Henry Clay, for which service thirty-five hundred dollars were appropriated by that body. The same bill passed the House on the seven- teenth of February .2 Bingham knew Mr. Clay personally and had painted several portraits of him.^ April the twenty-second our artist was in Brunswick working upon portraiture.^ In anticipating his visit about three weeks earlier the Brunswick Central City says: "We understand from reliable authority that our great Missouri Artist, Geo. C. Bingham, has consented, at the solicitation of some of our citizens, to visit Brunswick before his return to Europe. — The probability is, another opportunity to secure a likeness by this celebrated painter will never be offered to our citizens, and we hope many may be induced to let him try his magic pencil in transferring their features to the canvas." Probably it was during this short stay in Missouri that he painted the portraits of Dr. and Mrs. Benoist Troost of Kansas City. In technical treatment they are so closely 'In the State Capitol. It was saved, while all of Bingham's paintings were burned in the fire of 1912. Miss Mathilde K. Dallmeyer, Jefferson City, Mo., gives us this information. ■^Journal of the Senate of the State of Missouri, 1859, p. 241. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Missouri, 1859, p. 293. ^Missouri Statesman, Feb. 25, 1859. *Ibid., Apr. 22, 1859. Plate XXXVI Property of Mr. E. It'. Stephens ELIJAH S. STEPHENS Plate XXXVII Property of Mr. E. JV. Stephens MRS. ELIJAH S. STEPHENS DUSSELDORF PERIOD. 71 analogous to the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. James M. Piper, painted in 1862, that they might be assigned to that year were it not for the fact that Dr. Troost died in 1859. We find that Bingham frequently used photographs, memory and descriptions when he could not have the person himself for his model; but the spontaneity and life in Dr. Troost's por- trait in spite of its stiffness and pompousness, mark it as one of the best that Bingham ever painted, and it surely could not have been d6ne without the living character before the artist. At any rate there is but a year or two between the Troost and Piper portraits. All are painted on large canvases and present half-length views of the subjects. Those of Dr. Troost and his wife are particularly animated and full of spirit. And the former is better in many respects than that of Mrs. Troost — Bingham usually did better work when a man was his model. Here he has represented a robust man of about seventy-five years, sitting in his library with a large volume in his hand, from which he has just looked up, marking his place with his finger. The instantaneous effect of the work surpasses any of the earlier portraits we have examined. The reddish tones of the shadows in the background and the green of the book are identical with those colors in the painting of Mrs. Troost. This fact, together with the analogy in the arrangement of the figures, supports the assumption that the two were done at about the same time, despite the superiority of that of Dr. Troost. The portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Elijah S. Stephens (Pis. XXXVI and XXXVII), are said to have been painted in 1859 also.^ They are in a bad state of preservation, which may account in a degree for the duller color than is in other work of the period. They give the impression of being truth- >Mr. E. W. Stephens, Columbia, Missouri. 72 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. ful and sincere interpretations, though lacking in the spon- taneity of the last ones discussed. In the first week of May, 1859, shortly before starting to Europe, where he had left his family, Bingham received a commission from the Mercantile Library of St. Louis for a full-length portrait of Baron von Humboldt.^ But before he had reached Berlin — in fact, before he had more than started — the German naturalist and philosopher died May the sixth in his ninetieth year. Bingham, nevertheless, went on to Berlin, where he was furnished several portraits of Humboldt and was allowed to make studies for the work in the philoso- pher's own library. The final product was considered a good likeness. 2 But however the physical portrayal may be, the spiritual qualities associated with the man are well interpreted. He stands in his library, in his hand an open book from which he looks up, interrupted in his study by our presence. Only the head is emphasized, all else is much subdued in tone. The furniture of the room is so dimly shown that only careful observation can discern it, and the body is but vaguely repre- sented, seemingly no attempt being made to give a correct drawing of the anatomy. But this is not necessarily a deroga- tory criticism; Bingham knew how to paint figures in such a way as to give the suggestion of a body beneath the clothes; but in the late years of Humboldt's life people hardly as- sociated the attenuated physical body with the great person- ality. It was his wonderful intellect that was always thought of. So Bingham has attempted to emphasize that phase by artificially throwing all the light upon the noble head crowned with a glory of snow-white hair. One is somewhat worried by the feeling that the book which he holds must be too heavy ^Missouri Statesman, Apr. 27 and June 29, 1860, from the St. Louis News. ^Ibid., June 29, 1860, from the St. Louis News. Plate XXXVIII Property of Miss Tete Todd MRS. R. L. TODD AND DAUGHTER Plate XXXIX Property oj Col. R. R. Price DR. EDWIN PRICE DUSSELDORF PERIOD. 73 for him; but it helps to relieve the darkness of the picture. The portrait was probably not finished until after the artist's return to the States; for it was not delivered to the Mercantile Library until about April of 1860.^ It is said that Bingham intended to go to Italy while he was in Europe this second time, but that the death of his wife's father on June 12, 1859, made their return necessary ,2 and they reached New York in the first week of September of that year.^ One of the portraits painted shortly after his return, that of Mrs. R. L. Todd and little daughter (PI. XXXVIII), makes an interesting comparison with his early attempt at representing a mother and child in the portrait of Mrs. Lamme and son (PI. X), more than twenty years before. The greater freedom of the later work is apparent at once. Perhaps the features are no more truthfully rendered here than in Mrs. Lamme's portrait, but the general arrangement of compo- sition is more successful. The representation of the baby, too, is better understood in the later work, the child seems actually to sit upon the mother's lap, and its body is much more cor- rectly modelled. The mother's hands are less awkwardly arranged, the texture of the drapery is better suggested, and there is more sparkle of life and animation throughout the whole work. It is said that Bingham himself considered this one of his best works in portraiture. Though less well preserved, the portrait of Bingham's second wife, Mrs. Eliza Thomas Bingham, is sufficiently similar to that of Mrs. Todd in color, drawing and in the oval composition to justify its assignment to about this year. ^Ibid.. Apr. 27, 1860. 'Neff, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. ^Missouri Statesman, Sept. 9, 1859. 74 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. The perfect ease of the pose and the sincere interpretation of the character of the subject make this, too, a very successful portrait. Two years later, in 1862, were made the portraits of Mrs. Bingham's sister, Mrs. James M. Piper, and the latter's husband, Mr. Piper. The color scheme and the treatment of other details here show close similarity to the Troost por- traits. Perhaps the portrait of Mrs. Thomas W. Nelson in the Kansas City Public Library also belongs to this period. Its good drawing and composition place it among the works of the artist's best years, and the half-length view of the figure, together with the animated expression and the deep rich colors, make it a probable member of this series. Though his genre compositions are almost always laid in the out-of- doors, this is one of but few known portraits with such a setting. The woman is dressed in a dark green close-fitting riding habit. The horse upon which she sits is not shown, and the wooded landscape is used more as a screen background than as a natural one, though the pathway leading off through the wood is charmingly rendered, with the sunshine lighting it up in the open space beyond. A horse's head shows from behind some trees, with a dog standing guard. But the por- trait occupies much the largest part of the canvas. In this year, 1862, Bingham painted the portraits of Dr. Edwin Price and his son and daughter-in-law. Col. and Mrs. R. B. Price. Those of the two men (Pis. XXXIX and XL), are particularly strong, that of Col. Price ranking with the artist's very finest portrait works. Mrs. Price's portrait (PI. XLI) is very attractive, but otherwise less satisfactory. We are told that Bingham much preferred to paint men; for he felt that he could rarely dare to paint women as they actually appeared. He felt obliged to make them a little Plate XL Property of Col. R. B. Price COL. R. B. PRICE Plate XLI Property of Col. R. B. Price MRS. R. B PRICE DUSSELDORF PERIOD. 75 prettier than they were.^ As a consequence, we find his portraits of women less convincing, as a rule, than those of men. The Thread of Life was painted after the artist was married to his second wife.^ Rollins Bingham (named for the father's close friend. Major Rollins) was born in September, 1861,^ and it seems probable that the picture may have been suggested by this occasion, particularly as the woman represented, though somewhat idealized, resembles the portrait of the second wife closely enough that we may consider her to have been the model. This painting is, for Bingham, an unusually academic piece of work and the only allegorical one which, as far as we know, he ever produced. A woman clad in ideal drapery is enthroned upon a bank of clouds. On her lap stands an infant who draws the thread from a distaff at her side, while fortune, or the guardian spirit, represented by the dimly suggested angel floating below, guides the thread onward through space. The color scheme is very different from other paintings by Bingham. It is no more naturalistic than usual — even less so. But it is not of that flat, neutral type of his early period, nor of the heavy, dull Diisseldorfian character of his later work. It is made up of very light, pale ivory-like tints of blue, pink and yellow, so arranged and harmonized as to form a charming decorative canvas. iLetter from Mrs. Emma King Turner to Miss May Simonds, Feb. 27, 1902. 'Mrs. E. Hutchison, Independence, Mo., gives this information. ^Letter from Rollins Bingham to Miss Simonds, Mar. 1, 1902, 76 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. 1 CHAPTER VI. . ' i CIVIL WAR PERIOD (1860-66). No doubt a strong reason for Bingham's making his | second stay in Europe so short was the unsettled condition of 1 his own country. He never considered the duties of his i profession of more importance than those he felt he owed to i the Union, and he stood ready to render any service that might be required of him. He first took up his residence in j Kansas City, where he occupied a house afterwards used as a barrack and prison. Here, in the summer of 1861, he served j as captain of what was known as the Irish Company of Van , Horn's Battalion of United States Volunteer Reserve Corps. ! The battalion was formed to preserve law and order in Kansas { City. The commissioners of the Metropolitan Police had been j granted extraordinary powers and were acting independently i of the mayor. They were in favor of the cause of secessionists and were intolerable toward Unionists. When Major Van i Horn took the other two companies of the battalion upon i expeditions out through the country, he often left the guarding \ of the city in the hands of Captain Bingham.^ i We know that this was not Bingham's first service, however; for he states in a letter written from the Treas- urer's office at Jefferson City, August 13, 1862, to his | sister, Mrs. Amanda Barnes of Arrow Rock, that at the j beginning of the war he was the first Missourian in the border I counties to enter the service of the government as a private. i In this same letter, in support of the advice which he offers I »Case, T. S., History of Kansas City, p. 72/. Vincent, Louella S., in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Feb. 20, 1898. CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 77 in compliance with his sister's request concerning her sons, he expresses his views regarding the war: "In answer to your request in behalf of the boys I send the within papers which were written exclusively by myself at the beginning of the Rebellion. This war, they may rest assured, is simply an effort of one party to destroy the government established by our Fathers and attested by experience, on the one side, and an effort to maintain it by those who regard it as the last hope of freedom on the other side. The authors of the Rebellion knew very well that Southern people were easily excited upon the subject of Slavery, and that lawless efforts on the part of Northern abolitionists to destroy the efficacy of laws of Congress in their favor furnished grounds for un- easiness. They therefore told us that the national govern- ment was the enemy of Slavery and proposed its destruction in defiance of the constitution. These same authors of the Rebellion, however, send their ambassadors to Europe, where they well knew that the public sentiment was opposed to Slavery, and these ambassadors are instructed to tell the people there that the Government of the United States is a proslavery government, and that even the black Republican Congress with but one dissenting vote had pledged the perpetuation of Slavery in states where it existed. What they have told us, or what they have told the people of Europe, one or the other must be false, and should we be such fools as to be seduced into a rebellion against the government established by Washington and other great men of the South by the statements of men who are so plainly seen to be liars? At the very commencement of the war, I was the first Mis- sourian in the border counties to enter the service of the government as a private. I have seen much on the part of men proposing to be Unionists which I have been compelled 78 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. to condemn ; but the same may be said of the professed votaries of Christianity, and does this justify us in becoming infidels? If my nephews follow my advice, those of them old enough to shoulder a musket and pull a trigger will volunteer in the service of the U. S. This is the best thing they can now do for them- selves and country. If they associate with Secessionists and believe their statements, they will likely side with treason. I would suffer death sooner than counsel them to dishonor. If they will go into the army either for nine months or during the war and will come to me, I will assist them."^ To celebrate the capture of Camp Jackson on May 10, 1861, which is said to have saved Missouri to the Union, Bingham painted General Nathaniel Lyon and General Frank P. Blair Starting from the Arsenal Gate in St. Louis to Capture Camp Jackson (PI. XLII). The usual form of composition is used : the hero upon a white charger in the center of the picture and other figures grouped in the order of their importance. So General Lyon sits upon his white horse, clad in perfectly fitting uniform and gleaming boots, and, with cap in hand, looks out at us. Beside him on a black horse rides General Blair, and behind him come those next in order, the first of whom may be General Schofield. They are nearing the river, beyond which a burst of light in the sky adds to the grandiose impression of the scene. The composition is well arranged and balanced, and the purpose of the artist, to glorify the hero of the occasion. General Lyon, is accomplished. Bingham's company was attached to Colonel Mulligan's command and was included in the surrender at Lexington in September, 186 1.^ He afterward resigned his office as captain and was appointed State Treasurer, January 4, 1862, by 'Letter lent the author by Mrs. Arthxir J. Walter, Adrian, Mo. ^Conard, op. cit., v. I, p. 275. Plate XLII Property of the G. B. Rollins Estate GENERAL LYON AND GENERAL BLAIR START- ING FOR CAMP JACKSON CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 79 Governor Gamble to fill the place of A. W. Morrison, who had refused to take the oath of loyalty.^ He immediately moved with his family from his home in Kansas City to Jefferson City, where he took up the work of the office. A statement made by his wife in June of the following year to the effect that the responsibilities of the office were too great in proportion to the compensation assures us that Bingham was not doing the work for the money in it.^ And in a letter to her sister, Mrs. Piper, written from Jefferson City, February 7, 1863, Mrs. Bingham tells of their practice of economy in the home: "Dear little Rollins is well, and he looks as sweetly in his suit made of my old gown as he does in his best bib and tucker. Clara has made him a pair of boots out of that beautiful hood from her cloak. When he gets these on, together with mother's old red wooly shawl and Lucy's hood, he looks a picture worthy of an artist's son."^ It was in May, 1862, that Bingham's opposition to Colonel Jennison began. We find this notice in the Missouri Statesman for May 16: "Mr. Geo. C. Bingham, State Treasurer, and as honorable and loyal a citizen as ever lived, is out in a scath- ing expose of the robberies, raids, murders and jayhawking of Jennison. It is a long but terribly severe and, we doubt not, a truthful document and cannot fail to have a very damaging effect upon this prince of buckanies."'^ In writing to her sister June 20, 1863, Mrs. Bingham says: "Have you seen the resolutions adopted by the Emancipation Convention convened here some days since? Mr. Gratz Brown and Mr. Bingham came almost to blows during its sitting. Mr. Brown ^Official Manual of the State of Missouri, 1909 — 10. ^Letter from Mrs. Bingham to Mrs. Piper, June 20, 1863 — lent the writer by Mr. W. E. Thomas, Kansas City. 'Letter lent by Mr. W. E. Thomas. ♦Bingham's article is published in the Political History of the United States, V. 8. 80 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. made a speech attacking with furious onslaught Governor Gamble, the State Officers, Mr. Bingham in particular, and upholding Jennison. Mr. Bingham replied telling him if he did not upon the instant take back the lies he had uttered, he would have satisfaction and that speedily before leaving the Hall, whereupon Mr. Brown backed down and came to his senses in double-quick time."^ Whether through Bingham's influence or otherwise, an order was issued July 1, 1862, by the Secretary of War, rescinding his order of May the twenty- sixth which had reinstated Jennison.^ And again July 23, 1865, Jennison was tried before a Court Martial, found guilty of arson, robbery, embezzlement, neglect of duty and disobedience of orders and was commanded "to be dishonorably dismissed from the service of the United States."^ Probably this attack upon Jennison is the affair referred to by Rollins Bingham in telling of his father s outspoken and fearless criticisms: "He published severe criticisms upon the conduct of Kansas troops and their officers stationed in and raiding through Missouri. He gave names and details over his own signature. As a result he was sued for libel and slander by a certain Col. Ranson^ of Kansas, who claimed damages to the extent of twenty thousand dollars. My father made a vigorous defense, proved his statements to be true at the trial, which resulted in a verdict for the defendant."^ The seriousness of Bingham's attack is further emphasized by Mrs. Bingham in her letter of February 7, 1863: "We have a radical set here now in the Legislature; but I believe they are not in the majority. Mr. Bingham has incurred their eternal displeasure 'See note 2, p. 79. ^Missouri Statesman, July 11, 1862. *Ihid., July 7. 1865. *Our italics. Letter from Rollins Bingham to Miss Simonds, Apr. 23, 1902. CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 81 by his expose of Jennison and his misdoings in this state, and they can never let an opportunity pass without showing their maHce against him, if Mr. Bingham's name is ever brought up in any movement by his friends. Assail his reputation as a man they cannot, but they think doubtless to do him infinite harm by their criticisms of him as an artist and would literally pick his works to pieces with their hands if they had the power, as they think they now do with their tongues. — A bill has been introduced here this winter to give Mr. Bingham another picture to paint, but he will not get it if the radicals can keep him from it."^ Evidently, the picture referred to is the equestrian portrait of General Lyon, discussed below, for which the artist contracted August 1, 1863. Bingham served his term as State Treasurer, which lasted till 1865, with the strictest integrity during a time when the confusion and excitement of war troubles made money matters very uncertain and the acquisition of money by officials in positions of trust very easy; particularly did the treasurer's office offer every chance for such without the necessity of stooping to absolute robbery. The state had issued millions of dollars in "Union Defense Warrants" which bore interest at the rate of six per cent per annum, and a special tax was levied to raise funds for the redemption of the warrants, which were made redeemable at the State Treasu- rer's office. At the time Bingham was redeeming these, two years after they had been issued, they had depreciated to twenty-five cents below par, which added to the interest would amount to thirty-seven cents on the dollar. Had Bingham wished to make a fortune off of these, he could have done it without robbing the State Treasury of anything. St. Louis banks urged him to do it, offering to furnish all the 'See note 3, p. 79. 6 82 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. money necessary and divide the profits with him ; but he was above taking advantage of the people because of the oppor- tunity which the turbulent time offered.^ The treasury kept for convenience and safety large sums of money in a St. Louis bank. One deposit Bingham himself had loaded into an ox-cart and taken there by night at a time when it was feared that the capital city might be attacked by the Con- federates under General Sterling Price. After Bingham had finished his work as treasurer and had straightened out his accounts to the perfect satisfaction of the government, the St. Louis bank sent him a statement to the effect that it was indebted to him twenty-seven thousand dollars in the form of a deposit subject to his order. Bingham wrote to the bank that it was a mistake; but the reply came that the amount was due him. So he went with his bookkeeper to St. Louis and after days of investigation proved to the bank that there was nothing due him either as State Treasurer or privately At the expiration of his term of office Bingham moved from JefTerson City to Independence, where we find him in November, 1865, engaged upon his famous canvas. Order No. 11.^ Though a stanch Unionist, our artist was as relentless in his denunciation of what he considered unjust acts on the part of men allied with his party as of those by members of the opposition. When General Ewing issued his Order No. 11 in 1863, Bingham went to him with a plea that he rescind it, exclaiming when Ewing refused that he would make the author of it infamous with pen and brush. There were during the early part of the war bands of robbers and murderers who continually made plundering raids from Kansas over into the border counties of Missouri. This trouble had become so "Vincent, Louella S., op. cit. *Ibid. 'Missouri Statesman, Nov. 24, 1865, from the Kansas City Journal. CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 83 serious that the commanding officers deemed speedy and decisive measures necessary to stop it. Some thought the only means would be to lay waste the border so that the source of shelter and subsistence for the marauding bands should be cut off. So Brigadier-General Ewing, who was in command of the military district of "the Border," issued an order on the twenty-fifth of August, 1863, commanding the removal of all the inhabitants of that district, except those in certain localities, within fifteen days. Only those who should establish their loyalty were to be allowed to go to military stations in the district. As far as possible, grain and hay were to be taken to the stations, and that which was beyond reach was to be burned. This order affected several counties and parts of counties, and Unionists suffered along with the rest at the hands of many of the officers and others pretending to be officers who executed the order. Bingham felt that such a severe measure was not necessary. He said that "it did, indeed, put an end to the predatory raids of Kansas red-legs and jay hawkers by surrendering to them all that they coveted, leaving nothing that could further excite their cupidity, but it gave up the country to bushwhackers, who, until the close of the war, continued to stop the stages and rob the mails and passengers; and no one wearing the federal uniform dared to risk his life within the desolated district."^ This order, to- gether with several other disgraceful affairs for which Bingham believed Ewing to be responsible, made the artist Ewing's bitter enemy. Until a few years ago the log cabin which Bingham is said to have used for a studio while painting Order No. 11 and some other works was still standing, though with sky- »From Bingham's answer to Gen. Schofield, quoted by Miss Simonds in Missouri History as Illustrated by Geo. C. Bingham, published in the Missouri Historical Review, v. I, p. 181 if. 84 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. lights battered out and in bad condition generally.^ In 1865, he began painting the picture (PI. XLIII), and it was not completed until 1868. We are told that, unable to obtain a canvas large enough, he began the work upon a wooden panel, which was soon found to be cracking; so he prepared a piece of tablecloth and used it for his canvas.^ Mrs. J. W. Mercer of Independence, Missouri, now owns, pos- sibly, what is referred to as the "wooden panel." The painting is not done directly on the panel, but on a canvas stretched over a panel, which in cracking has injured the canvas also. As we see it today this picture is quite complete, though it may not have been finished until after the painting on the tablecloth. The latter was given by Bingham, a few years after its completion, to two of his friends. Colonel R. B. Price and Major James S. Rollins, because he saw no hope of being able to pay back a loan which he had ob- tained from them in order to have an engraving made of the work. This painting is now owned by the estate of the late George Bingham Rollins of Columbia. The two paintings are approximately the same size (about six and a half by four and a half feet) and there are no striking differences in the compositions. In the few differences that do occur, in such details as the position of the head of the prostrate young woman in the foreground and the costume of the woman with her arms about her father, Mrs. Mercer's painting shows divergences from the engraving, while the other agrees with it in every detail. This makes it clear that the engraving was made from the Rollins painting. The composition of Order No, 11 follows the same general arrangement which we found in the compositions of the ^Kansas City Star, Oct. 6, 1901. sCol. R. B. Price. Property of Mr. Jl'. E. Thomas MAJOR DEAN IN JAIL CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 85 "election series," the large mass of the picture built up at one side and extending out to a little beyond the center, then an open space, and at the other side a smaller mass. Here we are allowed to look away out into the distance and see the funeral-like processions of people wending their way across the plains, and the fires and clouds of smoke outlining them- selves against the horizon. All of this aids the artist in his attempt to explain that the scene in the foreground is only one of many of its kind. There the main light falls upon a little family group out-of-doors near their home. A crowd of red- legs is close behind them, and on a horse in the center of the group is an officer who is said to represent Ewing himself.^ One cowardly fellow holds in his hand the revolver with which he has just shot a young man of the family; another is in the act of drawing his revolver to kill the gray-haired old patriarch, who with clinched fist and enraged face is pouring forth his indignation upon the perpetrators of such injustice. A daugh- ter clings to his neck, begging him to submit rather than lose his life. A little grandson tugs at his leg, realizing that some- thing is wrong though he cannot understand it all, while another daughter kneels before the officer, praying for her father's life. The mother has fainted in the nurse's arms, the young wife has fallen upon the dead body of her husband, and to the extreme right two terrified negro servants hurry away. In contrast to this tragic scene the plunderers behind it go about their work of stripping the house of its furnishings in the most calm, cold-blooded manner, piling their wagons high with their pillage. Bingham has not limited himself to any one particular scene, he only wishes to give a type; so he has not tried to represent it naturalistically in every point; 'Bingham, Rollins, Bingham and his Missouri Art — published in the Kansas City Star, Dec. 5, 1909, 86 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. he has put the Hghts where they best help to tell the story and arranged the whole with that end in view. In his vigorous article written a few years later(1871) in defense of this picture, he clearly states his belief that there is no nobler employment for the artist than that of making his art the handmaid of history. He explains that his purpose in painting the picture was not to bring discredit upon the Union cause nor ''to keep alive base and malignant passions engendered by war," but rather to keep before the minds of the people, as a warning, the awful results which come from the abusive use of military rule, remembering that hatred of tyranny means love of liberty. He also discusses at length the conditions of affairs in the border counties at the time the order was issued and gives his reasons for being so firmly convinced that the order was unnecessary and infamously unjust.^ He was most successful in keeping fresh a hatred of the act and itsinstigator ; for not only was the painting exhibited to thousands, but engravings were made of it (in 1872), and distributed far and wide. When General Ewing was running for the governorship of Ohio, Bingham supplemented his fiery articles, which he published in papers, with exhibitions of his painting in that state, and thus, it is said, he was the cause of Ewing's defeat.^ A contemporary critic of Bingham and defender of Ewing says that Bingham's great mistake was that he judged the soldier from the civilian's standpoint, that he applied Christian principles to war, when war meant the destructive modes and processes of the devil Perhaps this is true; but friends of the artist will answer that war iBingham, Geo. C, An Address to the Public Vindicating a Work of Art Illustrative of the Federal Military Policy in Missouri during the late Civil War. Kansas City, Mo., 1871. 2Mr. C. B. Rollins. ^Missouri Statesman, Mar. 29, 1878, from the Sedalia Democrat. CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 87 might be of a less fiendish nature if such honest, noble men as Bingham were allowed to have more of the management of it. The artist was engaged in July, 1866, upon another work of a similar character, with a similar purpose in view, when he was painting a picture of Major Dean, a preacher and an ardent Union soldier, in his cell in the Independence jail, where he was placed for preaching without having taken the oath of loyalty.^ The picture (PI. XLIV), is painted in oil upon a piece of drawing paper, about nine by eleven inches, which has been spliced and pasted on cardboard, making it fourteen inches square. The preacher, serious and composed, sits in the corner of his cell beside a heavily barred window through which the light falls upon an open book which he reads. At his feet lies a Baptist Journal', and a blanket, to- gether with a bare mattress, fills out the space and completes a well-balanced composition. The painting is remarkably carefully and minutely finished for work on such scrappy, perishable material — and again we are impressed with Bing- ham's perseverance in spite of all material difficulties. ij&id., July 6, 1866, from the St. Louis Dispatch. 88 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. CHAPTER VII. I LATER WORK IN PAINTING AND POLITICS (1866-79). ' In 1866, Bingham again became involved in politics, submitting his name to the Congressional nominating com- mittee as candidate from the sixth district. He promised to abide by the decision of the committee and to support the nominee; and when he was defeated and Judge Birch was nominated instead of him, he kept his promise. It was the j cause, he said, and not the man, for which he was working.^ j Eight years later, when running for the same office in the 1 eighth district, he withdrew his name before the convention | which had met to make its nominations rather than take the oath to support the nominee, because he considered one of his competitors a man unworthy of his support.^ So we find that he did not actually count the man of no importance in ' comparison with the cause. In 1868, he was appointed by the Democratic convention Elector for the sixth district;^ | for, though he had been a stanch Whig before and during the , war, having held that the war was justifiable only upon the I grounds set forth in the Crittenden Resolutions, the departure ! therefrom by the government caused him to ally himself with | the Democratic party, where he stood from that time.^ During his residence in Independence he devoted much of his time to portraiture, making frequent trips out over the j state, stopping at the larger towns to execute orders. His | leisure moments at home were spent in the out-of-doors I i 'Ibid., June 1 and Oct. 5, 1866. ] *IMd., Aug. 28, 1874. | 9J6td., June 5. 1868. , *Art Interchange, June, 1896. | LATER WORK. 89 walking about his place and working at gardening and bee- culture on the large tract of land which he had.^ One service which we have record of his rendering his town is that of acting upon the school board in 1869.^ August 1, 1863, he had entered into a contract with the Secretary of State to paint a life-sized or larger equestrian portrait of Brigadier-General Nathaniel Lyon for the capitol building at Jefferson City.^ The contract was made in pursu- ance of a resolution of the House of Representatives which appropriated nothing from the treasury for the purpose, but designated that the Secretary of State should solicit subscriptions and engage a competent artist. At the time the commission was given to Bingham five hundred and fifty-four dollars had been collected and four hundred and seventy- five had been subscribed but not paid. The contract stated that Bingham, upon the completion of the work, should be paid twenty-five hundred dollars, or as much of this sum as should have been collected at that time. The artist was not limited as to time for the execution of the work, and not until November, 1865, had he made his small study for the picture, a photograph of which he submitted for inspection to the speaker of the House and other friends of the work, not, it is worth while to note, soliciting suggestions and criticisms from them, but saying only, "In the large picture I can make any improvements which may suggest themselves to my judgment." In this communication he also expressed his purpose to complete the work in the course of the next summer, adding the suggestion that in the meantime some measure be adopted to provide for the completion of the 'Letter from Rollins Bingham to Miss May Simonds, June 18, 1902. ^Missouri Statesman, Oct. 1, 1869. •See p. 81. 90 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. subscription.^ A lock of the General's hair, portraits of him, ! and descriptions of his horse had been furnished Bingham for the study. The date of the delivery to the capitol is not i known, but we are told that he finished it in a much shorter time than he was wont to do when fulfilling such large com- \ missions — that he painted the picture in five weeks.^ A portrait of Rollins Bingham (PI. XLV), represents i the artist's son at about six years of age. It is stated above I that the child was born in 1861 ; so the portrait was painted in ] about 1867 probably in his first school days, suggested by the book which he holds under his arm. He is an intelligent [ little fellow with blue eyes and golden hair, and he looks , out at us with the frankness and interest peculiar to child- ! hood. Another child's portrait, painted two years later, in ] 1869, is of little John J. Mastin at eighteen months. Most I of the work was done from a photograph, because the artist's ' peculiar appearance in his painting garb and surroundings j frightened the child. The full-length figure of the child is 1 portrayed; he is clothed in a red dress, and he sits with his j legs crossed and his right hand resting on a little dog. The background is an ideal arrangement of trees and architectural j forms, and the whole picture is lacking in the impression of reality which we find in the portrait of the artist's son. A i portrait of John J. Mastin's father, Thomas H. Mastin, was | also made in 1869. Here, as in the portraits made earlier \ in this decade, we find the use of deeply colored drapery in the i background, and the work upon the face is straightforward and I convincing. { In May of 1871, Bingham had finished for the General's ; friends a large portrait of General Frank P. Blair, United I ,1 ^Journal of the Adjourned Session of the 23rd General Assembly of Missouri, I appendix, p. 855#. »NeflP, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. Plate XLV Property of Mrs. E. Hutchison ROLLINS BINGHAM LATER WORK. 91 States Senator. He must have been engaged upon the canvas in 1869; for we are told in connection with the picture of John J. Mastin, discussed above, that the artist was working upon a portrait of General Blair at the time he was painting the child's.^ The portrait was exhibited in St. Louis and Columbia before being sent to its final destination. Though it is said to have been intended for the State Capitol, it hangs today in the Mercantile Library beside the portrait of Baron von Humboldt. According to a statement made by the artist's son in 1902, a study for the portrait was then in the possession of Mrs. James M. Piper of Kansas City.^ This study is now owned by Mrs. F. P. Blair of Chicago. In about 1870, Bingham spent several weeks at the home of his friend, Mr. Kinney of New Franklin, and four portraits in the home today show the result of his work there. Two of these are of Mr. and Mrs. Kinney; the others are of Mr. Kinney's son and daughter, painted together on a large canvas. They are described as being very stiff and poor likenesses.^ In May of 1870, Bingham sold his home in Independence for ten thousand dollars,^ and Kansas City was his home for the rest of his life. He frequently made extended visits and trips out of the city, but he never again owned a house any- where else. In this year also we find the only record of any pupil of Bingham: ''Charles P. Stewart, the artist, has gone to Kansas City to study the profession and practice it beneath the eye of the Missouri Master in painting, Mr. G. C. Bingham. Mr. Stewart has already gained much popularity in his profession 'Mrs. Thos. H. Mastin. •Letter from Rollins Bingham to Miss May Simonds, June 18, 1902. •Miss Alice Kinney, New Franklin, Mo. ^Missouri Statesman, May 6, 1870. 92 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. and is on the road to greater successes."^ This was pubUshed on July the fifteenth, and on the sixth of September he returned to Columbia.2 Whether this was the only time Stewart worked under Bingham we do not know. He seems to have painted only portraits, but those are of a fair quality. When Bingham went to Columbia, as he frequently did all through his professional life, he was always heartily wel- comed and shown most generous hospitality by his close friends, among whom were Colonel R. B. Price and Major James S. Rollins. Major Rollins was his most intimate and helpful friend through most of his life. In his very early years, when Bingham undertook the procuring of an art education, we found his young lawyer friend lending him money and encouraging him in his attempts.^ And never did this true friend fail. As a State Senator he used every effort for the passage of the bill introduced by the House, providing for the payment of Bingham's expenses which he had been forced to incur through the defense of his seat in the House to which he had been regularly elected in 1846.'* He was always ready to lend money for the engraving of his friend's pictures. He often defended him against criticisms, and he gave him a place in his home for months at a time. Upon the artist's last visit to Major Rollins' home, when the latter casually remarked, "Bingham, if I had your genius, I would be a millionaire," Bingham rejoined with a heart full of gratitude, asking what need he had of money when he had a friend who was always on the lookout for his welfare.^ Dr. Smith, in his Memoirs of James Sidney Rollins, cites the peculiar friendship of ^Ibid., July 15, 1870. *Ibid., Sept. 9, 1870. »See p. 20. *Missouri Statesman, Mar. 16, 1849. •Mr. C. B. Rollins. Plate XLVI Property of Mr. C. B. Rollins MAJOR JAMES S. ROLLINS Plate XL VI I LATER WORK. 93 Rollins and Bingham as very noteworthy. The tender attach- ment, the gratitude and the obligation, never considered a burden, which are expressed in the artist's letters to Rollins are alluded to by the author.^ A. J. Conant, in his speech in behalf of the Board of Curators of the University upon the presentation of the portrait of Rollins (painted by Bingham) by the people of Columbia, also speaks of the great friendship of the two: .and next to his own kith and kin, each by the other has been the best beloved. Together they have traveled life's pathway; side by side they have labored, contrib- uting in the Legislature and out of it, as best they might, all the power of their united personal influence to promote the best interests of the great commonwealth. In political life, in patriotic action, they have been one; and in sentiment and affection, like David and Jonathan, they have been united by ties most intimate and tender. The portrait referred to above was ordered by friends of Major Rollins for the University building, and Bingham was in Columbia working upon it October 13, 1871, and it had been recently completed April 11, 1873.^ It was a life- sized portrait representing the Pater Universitatis standing in the attitude of delivering a speech, a motive suggested by his extended services in the Legislature and Congress. A window at one side disclosed a view of the University, so recalling his acts which brought so much benefit to that institution. The work was enthusiastically lauded at the time as the artist's highest attainment in portraiture. And it is reasonable to believe that his great affection for the man and his familiarity with his features and characteristics should iSmith. W. B.. Memoirs of James Sidney Rollins, p. 72/. ^Ibid., p. 302/. 'Missouri Statesman, Oct. 13, 1871, and Apr. 11, 1873. 94 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. have enabled him to reach the zenith of his power as a portrait painter in this picture. It was destroyed in the University fire of 1892; but a small study in oil (PI. XLVI) remains. This, though much darkened and worn, may give some sugges- tion of the character of the finished work. As in the Humboldt portrait, the treatment of the body here is a little weak, the great attention being given to the head, which is very complete- ly portrayed and is full of the expression of noble, statesman- like character. A bust portrait (PI. XLVI I), done at about the same time and probably serving as another study for the large painting, is better preserved and gives a clearer presenta- tion of the character of the subject. The splendid qualities of this work are very evident in our reproduction and need no further comment. To this period belong also the portraits of Major Rollins' wife and daughter. That of Mrs. Rollins (PI. XLVI 1 1), in general arrangement and technical treatment, is strongly reminiscent of the portrait of Mrs. Price (PI. XLI), painted ten years earlier. But it is a little freer in pose, the handling of the light and shade is better, the modelling of the face and neck more complete, and it is more satisfactory as a whole. The portrait of Sallie Rodes Rollins (PI. XLIX), painted soon after her death, which occurred in December, 1872,^ is the most academic and chromo-like of all the known work of the artist. There is far less character expressed than in the portrait of the mother. The artist has not attempted a careful modelling of the form and features; his principal aim has been to express daintiness and beauty. The fact that he did not have the living model before him is probably, in large part, the cause of the academic treatment. ^Ibid., Dec. 6, 1872. Plate XLVIII Property o'f Mr. C. B. Rollins MRS. JAMES S. ROLLINS Plate XL IX Property of Mr. C. B. R'jllins MISS S ALL IE RODES ROLLINS LATER WORK. 95 Some sketches owned by Mr. C. B. Rollins, which were done by Bingham while he was in Major Rollins' home, show his interest in two branches of art which we have found but little represented in his work elsewhere, the academic nude and the religious. We have found academic treatment before, and there is a nude child in The Thread of Life. But these sketches include two reclining nude female figures which would seem to have been suggested by Giorgione's Venus, a standing nude in the attitude of the Venus de Medici and a seated one in almost the same attitude. These figures are rather care- fully drawn, but they are too heavy, coarse and clumsy in proportions. The religious subject represents Christ and Mary in the Garden. Mary assumes almost the same posture as one of the figures in Order No. 11; she kneels before Christ with her arms raised in supplication and her face full of yearning. Christ's face is not so good; he looks down upon Mary with an amiable but not essentially loving or devout expression. The extremities are poorly drawn, and the drapery appears to have given trouble ; it is much worked over with hesitating strokes and is not good at last. A cow grazing and, particularly, an old woman reading and a number of heads of men are the best things among these sketches. Less labored in finish, they appear to have been dashed off rapidly, and with a few strokes the character is plainly expressed. Some of the heads are much like work in the St. Louis Mercan- tile Library sketchbook, though less carefully finished. October 26, 1872, a communication from Denver, Colorado, states that Bingham has finished his latest picture, a View of Pike's Peak (PI. L), which, the writer promises, will soon be in St. Louis. ^ It is a large picture, about three and a half by five feet. The artist has chosen a view which brings the ^Ibid., Nov. 22, 1872, from a letter to the Missouri Republican. 96 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. highest point of the peak a little to the left of the center of the picture. The sun is pouring a flood of light upon the scene in the foreground, except for a few spots where it is cut off by the fleecy clouds. Down over the rocks at the right flows a stream of water, bubbling and foaming in little cascades, while in the quieter parts the rocks are mirrored on its surface. There is some vegetation visible, particularly at the left; but it is all of a hardy variety, scrubby and sparsely leaved, as we should expect in such bare, bleak surroundings. At the left, on a rock among the trees in a path of sunlight sits an Indian, quietly resting, with a rifle in his hand and feathers in his hair. His form is not made conspicuous, no more so than one of the trees. In spite of all the interest in the fore- ground, the lofty snow-capped peak towering behind it domi- nates the picture. In painting this canvas, as well as his other landscapes, the artist, we are told, made many sketches from nature in pencil and oil, representing the scene in the varying efi^ects of atmosphere, and finally from these sketches he painted the pictures in his studio. Portfolios containing a great many such sketches were in existence a short time before the artist's death ; but they have since been destroyed or lost.^ Probably the Pike's Peak, two and a half by four and a half feet, owned by Mr. R. S. Thomas of Blue Springs, was one of the studies for the large canvas. Bingham made a number of other paintings of Colorado landscapes during his summer's stay there; but they were not such large undertakings as the Pike's Peak} Artists and art lovers had not yet got away from the idea that the ordinary bit of landscape is not worthy of such care and labor on the part of the artist as is some marvel of nature such as a great 'Letter from Rollins Bingham to Miss May Simonds, June 18, 1902. 'See note 1. LATER WORK. 97 mountain peak. In 1902, four of these Colorado landscapes were owned, says Rollins Bingham, by Mrs. J. M. Piper. ^ Perhaps these are identical with some of the pictures which pass under such names as Moonlight Scene, Winter Sce^ie, and simply Landscape Views (see appendix) , December 11, 1874, the painting. Puzzled Witness (PI. LI), still lacking a few finishing touches, was on exhibition in St. Louis.2 It is another picture of western life, which might be classed along with the "election series." At a table, which occupies the center of the picture, sit the two attorneys. To our right stands the puzzled witness, scratching his head in his perplexity, while the dog at his feet shares in his bewilder- ment. Close about is a crowd of spectators, some only curious, others, either in a critical or a sympathetic manner, intently interested in the trial. Above, at his high bench, sits the all- important fat old judge, with water pitcher and glass at hand, careful, as always, for his physical comfort. The composition is built up in the common pyramidal form; but the apex, which is formed by the judge, is not the point of greatest interest. It is placed somewhat in the shadow, while the greater light falls upon the witness. The interesting dog in this picture recalls the remark often made that Bingham always had a dog in his genre pictures. The Jolly Flatboatmen is one exception. When asked why he had failed to represent one here, he replied, "I have not, the dog is in the hold."^ In 1874 Bingham served upon Kansas City's first board of Police Commissioners. Hon. H. J. Latshaw was chosen president of the board April the fifteenth, but he resigned May the eleventh, and Bingham was chosen to succeed him.'* 'Ibid. ^Missouri Statesman, Dec. 11, 1874. ^Col. R. B. Price. 'Case. T. S., op. cit., p. 214. 7 98 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. During his term of office he was unyielding in the enforcement of the law. Even before his appointment he had in January brought suit against a certain Michael Dively for permitting a gambling house to be kept on his premises.^ It was also in 1874 that Bingham submitted his name, at the urgent request of a large number of citizens of Kansas City, as a candidate for Congress in the eighth district, and then withdrew his name before the convention because he could not conscientiously take an oath to support his opponent in case the latter should receive the nomination.^ But Charles H. Hardin was elected governor in this campaign, and in January, 1875, Bingham received from him the appointment of Adjutant-General of Missouri. He did not remove his family from Kansas City, but he boarded in Jefferson City during the time that it was necessary for him to be at the capitol. "In addition to the regular work of the office," says General Bingham in his report submitted December 31, 1876, "largely increased labors were imposed by the War Depart- ment in the revision and verification of the lists of deceased soldiers of Missouri interred in the National cemeteries. The lists furnished for that purpose, upon comparison with the original records, were found to contain numerous errors and omissions, and the only way by which satisfactory cor- rections could be made was to compare each individual name, and in many instances to examine all the rolls of each organiza- tion mustered into the service." These lists submitted to General Bingham for correction in connection with the preparation of inscriptions for permanent headstones to be erected at the graves of Union soldiers contained the names of forty-one hundred soldiers whose remains were buried in ^Missouri Statesman, Jan. 23, 1874. ^See p. 88. LATER WORK. 99 thirty-three National cemeteries. Original records had been obtained from friends and comrades and from headstones placed at the graves at the time of the burial. On these headstones were often rudely inscribed with a sharp bayonet or knife only a partial or a wholly illegible name or monogram. Then Bingham began at once the investigations of the war claims and found that many companies were applying for large sums of money when the muster and pay roll vouchers representing the claims were defective, or there were no vouch- ers for the companies in the office and no indications of their having served. Also many persons were taking advantage of the act of Congress of 1873, whereby all soldiers who had served in the United States army not less than ninety days, had received honorable discharge and had subsequently home- steaded less than one hundred and sixty acres of land under the homestead act of May 20, 1862, and made final proof thereof were entitled to an additional homestead, provided it together with the original one did not exceed a hundred and sixty acres. Applications were made by individuals whose names were not on the rolls in the office, by many who said they belonged to regiments which never existed, and by other equally ineligible persons.^ Bingham's thorough investiga- tion and his exposures in the matter caused much excitement and comment. A pun in one of the papers of the day is, "If Geo. C. Bingham, Adjutant-General, is not the 'head center' of Hardin's administration, it cannot be questioned that he is the 'head scenter' of the fraudulent military claims. About four months in the early part of 1876 Bingham spent in Washington, D. C., working to get a bill through Congress providing for the payment to Missouri of money ^Missouri Adjutant-General's Report, 1875-76. ^Missouri Statesman, Nov. 12, 1875. 100 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. which the state had paid out to state troops serving in co- operation with United States forces during the war. Up to this time Missouri had made but one settlement with the government and had neglected to present the remainder of her claims. In all, those which Bingham presented amounted to about a hundred and eighty thousand dollars, and, with the help of the delegation from Missouri in Congress, he was successful in making a satisfactory settlement.^ While waiting to present the claims clearly before the congressional committees, Bingham spent his leisure hours in painting ; for a number of ladies of his state had requested that he contribute something for the centennial. He selected as his subjects Miss Vinnie Ream, a sculptor, and Miss Coleman, a granddaughter of Hon. John J. Crittenden. The portraits were pronounced excellent. But this work gave an enemy a chance to criticize, complaining that the Adjutant-General was wasting his time and the state's money at Washington, when he should be in Jefferson City attending to the work of his office. The rejoinder which Bingham wrote to this is characteristic of his outspoken manner and his chivalric treatment of women. He said it was not for his own sake that he answered the criticism, but for the sake of the two women, Miss Ream and Miss Coleman, whom the writer had slight- ingly spoken of in his article.^ A number of times Bingham was called into various counties to settle disturbances. In August, 1876, he was sent by Governor Hardin into Ripley County, where a ku-klux organization including about thirty desperadoes, was doing much damage and creating great excitement. While Bingham ^The Daily Tribune (Jefferson City), Mar. 4 and May 2, 1876. 'Ibid., Apr. 30, May 4 and May 10, 1876. LATER WORK. 101 was there, nine members of the band were arrested and the names of the remainder were ascertained.^ In spite of the criticisms which his relentless actions and bold language often incurred, the words of commendation expressed in regard to Bingham through all his public career are remarkable. Such expressions of appreciation as very rarely are made of a man during his lifetime may be seen time and time again in the papers of the day. At the time he was Adjutant-General, one writer after an extended eulogy says, "As an honored and distinguished representative of the char- acter of man needed and demanded by the honest element of the Democracy for the next governor of Missouri, Geo. C. Bingham, sans peur et sans reproche, stands pre-eminently foremost in all this broad state. And this is only one of the numerous tributes, many of which are equally laudatory. In 1876 Mrs. Bingham, who had been in poor health for about a year, spent the summer in the East, with her son, visiting, among other points, Philadelphia at the time of the centennial, and Washington, D. C.^ She returned apparently much improved in health. But very soon she grew worse, and her husband hastened to her, expecting to take her to San Antonio, Texas. But he found her in such a condition that her removal to the asylum at Fulton appeared advisable. Suffering from temporary aberration of the mind, she died there November the third. A letter written by Bingham to his sister soon afterward is full of deep sorrow. He speaks of his wife with most tender and appreciative words, of her unselfish nature, which manifested itself all through her life ^Ihid., Aug. 30. 1876. Missouri Adjutant-General s Report, 1875-76. ^The Daily Tribune (Jefferson City), Mar. 22, 1876, from a Jefferson City correspondent of the Saline County Progress. •Letter from Rollins Bingham to Miss May Simonds, June 18, 1902. 102 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. and at the last had caused her, in ministering to others, to contract the cold which brought on the fatal malady. Her insanity was of a quiet religious nature ; she believed herself in Heaven.^ Bingham himself became somewhat interested a little later in the prevailing excitement over spiritualism. He declared at one time that he had seen and talked to his wife and she had kissed him. "Ah, she kissed you, did she?" said a friend, "then she was your wife, indeed ; no other woman would kiss such a looking person as you."^ Bingham was reared a Methodist, as we have seen, but during his second wife's life, to be with her, he united with the Baptist Church. However, he did not readily give up his Methodist habits — he several times communed with other denominations.^ In February, 1877, he was in one of his characteristic debates in newspaper articles. General Schofield had written a defense of Order No. 11, and Bingham replied through the St. Louis Republican. He was a fighter to the last. At the time of his death he was in a fiery debate with Ex-Governor B. Gratz Brown upon the same subject, and he had a second or third article almost ready for publication.'* Death, says a contemporary, was the only hand that could ever have settled the dispute.^ At a meeting of the Board of Curators of the University January 19, 1877, a School of Art was established, and Bingham was elected its professor. No salary was provided; but he •r/ie Daily Tribune (JefTerson City), Oct. 31, 1876, by a member of the Bingham family. Missouri Statesman, Nov. 10. 1876. Letter from Bingham to his sister, Mrs. Amanda Barnes, Dec. 16, 1876, lent the writer by Mrs. Arthur J. Walter. »Col. R. B. Price. 'Neflf, Mrs. L. J. B.. op. cit. ^Missouri Statesman, June 20, and .July 11, 1879. »Col. R. B. Price. LATER WORK. 103 was granted the privilege of occupying such studio as the Executive Committee might assign for receiving pupils. It is probable, however, that a salary was attached to the position the third year; for a notice of the opening of the University in 1879 states that Bingham would give instruc- tion without extra charge to students. And after the death of the artist in that year Conrad Diehl of St. Louis was elected in October to fill his place, and one thousand dollars was to be paid him for his services during the remainder of the term.^ Bingham was given rooms in the Normal Building, to which he came in September. He taught not only pupils in the University, but also those in the female colleges of the town who wished his instruction The nature of his position did not necessitate his regular presence at the University; so he spent a good deal of time, even during the sessions, out of town. In July, 1877, he was in Boonville at the residence of Mr. Thomas Nelson engaged in portrait painting.^ So it was probably at this time that the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Nelson, owned by Mrs. Wyan Nelson of Kansas City, were painted. This conclusion is further substantiated by the fact that the costume of Mr. Nelson is of the same style as that of Mr. Black painted soon afterward, and also by a comparison of Mrs. Nelson's portrait with that of the same woman in the Kansas City Public Library, which we have decided was painted about 1862. We find that the difference in age might well place the second portrait fifteen years later. Mrs. Birch tells us that the portrait of herself and the picture of the Birch Homestead at Boonville and also the Palm Leaf Shade, »Switzler, W. F., History of the University of Missouri (Unpublished). Missouri Statesman, June 27, 1879. ^Missouri Statesman, July 20, and Sept. 28, 1877. *Ibid., July 6, 1877. 104 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. for which she herself posed, were painted in about the same year, so probably upon the same visit to Boonville. The last named picture, Palm Leaf Shade, is described by all who have seen it as a very beautiful piece of work. The woman sits in the bright sunlight out-of-doors, shading her face with a palm leaf fan. Bingham spent part of the month of May, 1878, in Texas, visiting his daughter and resting. It was a trip he had planned for months on account of the condition of his health.^ The eighteenth day of the following month he was married to Mrs. Mattie Lykins, widow of Dr. Lykinsof Kansas City; and with her he spent the summer in Colorado. One news- paper notice of the wedding is headed "Autumn Leaves. But in spite of the advanced age of the two, the union appears to have been a very happy one. Mrs. Lykins was one of the most intellectual and prominent women in Kansas City and was a source of much encouragement and help to Bingham. A relative says of him that he could never be content long without a wife ; he had come to depend so completely upon such a one that his absent-minded habits would get him into all sorts of trouble without her.^ After his marriage Bingham and his wife had rooms at Stephens College in Columbia. It was here that an episode took place of which old friends are fond of telling. Since his siege of measles in his nineteenth year he had always worn a wig, which he was rather sensitive about and which he believed was an inconspicuous and quite perfect substitute for real hair, though, as a matter of fact, it was always awry. So, great was his embarrassment but also quick, as usual, were his wits when at the first meal he and his bride took at Stephens 'I6rd., Jan. 4, Jan. 18, May 3, and May 31, 1878. '/6id., June 21, and July 5, 1878. 'Neflf, Mrs. L. J. B., op. cit. LATER WORK. 105 College, the waitress, passing behind him, caught her sleeve in his wig and lifted it from his head, carrying it half way around the table. Quick as thought, Bingham relieved the situation with, "I was not able to keep my own hair on my head ; how should I hope to keep the artificial?"^ A distinct honor was paid our artist when, in 1878, the managers of the Robert E. Lee Monument Association of the State of Virginia requested Governor Phelps to appoint General Bingham as the commissioner to represent Missouri in the selection of a design for the monument. He received the appointment and no doubt accepted it; for the com- mittee was to meet in Richmond on the twenty-seventh of November, and we find that Bingham and his wife returned to Columbia from Richmond December the sixth.^ About a year earlier he had been strongly recommended by the Curators of the University to the President of the Unite^d States as one of the assistant commissioners for the ensuing Paris Exposi- tion.^ An enumeration of the works in the artist's studio in March, 1879, included County Election, Order No. 11, A Puzzled Witness, Winter Scene and a number of portraits. The portrait of Eulalie Hockaday, granddaughter of Major Rollins, represented as Little Red Riding Hood, received particular attention. We are told that the artist wished to paint the child as she might actually appear if she were going for a trip through the wood, but again he was handicapped by the wishes of his patron. He was obliged to dress the little one in the best style of the day and arrange everything in the neatest, daintiest manner. Perhaps it is just as true to the nursery tale in that way; it is certainly as true to life as the 'Gentry, N. T., Address on Famous Missourians. ^Missouri Statesman, Nov. 8, and Dec. 6, 1878. 'Switzler, W. F., History of the University of Missouri (Unpublished.) 106 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. traditional wolf peering through the trees down the pathway. President Laws of the University and his wife, Captain J. H. and Mrs. Rollins and William Broadwell and wife of Fulton were the others represented by portraits.^ Two other of the artist's late portraits are those of Dr. Alexander M. Davison and Judge F. M. Black. Both are good, sincere portraits, illustrative of the best that Bingham commonly did in his mature years. The self-portrait of General Bingham in the Kansas City Public Library (Frontispiece) is well enough done to be classed among his late works, but the face looks like that of a man of only about fifty years, while photographs of Bingham in his last years would lead us to believe that he appeared even older than he actually was. We have several times called attention to the fact that he painted very good portraits only when the subject interested him and that for this reason the assignment of dates to some of his work is particularly difficult. So this portrait may have been painted earlier in life; or it may have been painted late, the artist making himself appear younger than his years and actual appearance justified. The last work which Bingham did was upon a portrait of his namesake, George Bingham Rollins. He took the portrait to Kansas City with him a few days before his death, intending to finish it there. It was left unfinished. In February, 1879, Bingham was very ill with pneumonia, from which he recovered in about a month. But in the follow- ing July he experienced a violent attack of cholera morbus which proved fatal. After three days he died, on July the seventh, in his home at the Lykins Institute in Kansas City. The funeral was held at that place, and it was said that ^Missouri Statesman, Mar. 7, 1879. LATER WORK. 107 never before had a funeral cortege in Kansas City drawn together so many distinguished citizens. The funeral sermon by the Reverend M. Chambliss of the Calvary Baptist Church and the addresses made by President Laws of the State University and Major Rollins, the life-long friend of the de- ceased, as well as all the newspaper accounts, were full of tribute to the purity of the artist-statesman's public and private life and to his support of integrity and justice in the face of everything. The text used by the minister was most appropriate: "Mark the perfect man, and behold the up- right; for the end of that man is peace. After the death of General Bingham's third wife, Mrs. Mattie Lykins Bingham, the administrator of the Bingham estate advertised a sale (the net proceeds from which were to be donated to the Ex-Confederate Home at Higginsville) to take place on March 25, 1893, at Findlay's Art Store in Kansas City, including the following paintings: One oil painting — Order No. 11. (Sold for S675.) One oil painting — Palm Leaf Shade. (Sold for $90.) One oil painting — Result of the Election.'^ (Sold for $200.) One oil painting — Puzzled Witness. One oil painting — Jolly Flathoatmen.^ One oil painting — Washington Crossing the Delaware. One oil painting — Landscape View. One oil painting — Landscape View in Colorado. One oil painting — Flock of Turkeys. One oil painting — Bunch of Letters, One oil painting — Moonlight View. One oil painting — Feeding the Cows. One oil painting — Bathing Girl. 'Kansas City Times, July 8, 1879. 2This is the one now owned by Mr. Peters. 'The one now owned by Mrs. Mastin. 108 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. Portrait of — Major Rollins. Portrait of — Dr. Lykins. Portrait of — General Bingham. Portrait of — Mrs. Bingham. Portrait of — Mr. McCoy. Portrait of — Mrs. McCoy. Portrait of — General Blair. Portrait of — Rollins Bingham. Portrait of — Mrs. General Bingham. Portrait of — John Howard Payne. Many of the paintings here listed we have located above. Others, namely, Landscape View, Landscape View in Colorado (these may be identical with some called Landscape Views which we have located — p. 96/), Flock of Turkeys, Bunch of Letters, Feeding the Cows, Bathing Girl (assigned by Mrs. Louise J. Bingham Neff to the artist's later life), the portraits of Dr. Lykins, Mr. and Mrs. McCoy, and Mrs. General Bingham (Mattie Lykins?) have not been located. There are also a number of portraits listed in the appendix which the writer has located but has neither seen nor been able to obtain data upon. Aside from these, we may reasonably believe that there are many portraits painted by Bingham in the homes of Missouri and other states. CONCLUSION. 109 CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION — ESTIMATE OF BINGHAM's WORK. Bingham's work was very unequal. We find in his later life some paintings as poorly executed as much of his early work, and some of his early work ranks with almost the best of his later. Particularly is this true in regard to the portraiture. We are not surprised to find it so, since we are told again and again that he did not consider that branch of art worthy except from a financial standpoint. So he did his best only when he was particularly interested in the subject of his portrait. The fact that he was so nearly self-trained and was so little influenced by art masters and schools is another cause of the lack of distinct changes during his life. With regard to his most successful works, however, his career divides itself into three fairly distinct periods. The first period (about 1833-37), extending from the time of his first known paintings to the year in which he went to Philadelphia, is again divided by his trip to St. Louis. Atten- tion has already been called to the stifTness, conventionality and leather-like quality of the portraits of about 1833, '34 and '35, for example that of Hon. Josiah Wilson (PI. V), and that of himself (PI. VI). Though Bingham did not stay long in St. Louis, and though he probably did not receive much instruction there (we have no knowledge of any), yet he must have seen more painting than ever before, and his work in the following year, 1837, shows a distinct advance. There is more freedom in the portraits of Mr. Lamme (PI. IX) and Dr. Rollins (PI. VII), particularly. No genre work can, with certainty, be assigned to this period. 110 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. In the second period (1837-56), however, which includes the years between the beginning of the artist's study in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and his trip abroad, were painted his most characteristic genre pictures, the "flatboatmen series" and the "election series." In the portraiture of this period better modelling and freer, less conventional treatment are evident, for example, the portrait of Dr. Potter (PI. XXIV). The third period (1856-79), comprising the last twenty- three years of Bingham's life, is characterized by still further progress in facility of technique and expression, due in great part to his increased experience, no doubt, rather than to what he learned from the Diisseldorf school. The new sur- roundings and, particularly, the opportunity of seeing many new works of art influenced him. We have no record, how- ever, of his having gone to Diisseldorf as a student. It would seem that he went as an independent artist, wishing only to work in an art center, where there was an added inspiration; for the large commissions which we know he executed while there, to say nothing of other work which he probably did, must have occupied the most of his time. Most of his known genre pictures painted after his return to the States were of a more historical nature, made more with a view to commemorat- ing particular occasions and are connected more definitely with particular individuals than were the earlier ones, which described Missouri life more generally. General Lyon and General Blair starting to Camp Jackson (PI. XLII), Order No. 11 (PI. XLII I) and Major Dean in Jail (PI. XLIV), are connected with definite occasions, and the latter two are quite plainly of a didactic nature. They are not so full of the passion for characteristic individuality as are, for example, the pictures of the "election series." The most academic things done by the artist belong also to these years — The Thread of Life^ CONCLUSION. Ill and the portrait of Miss Rollins (PI. XLIX). Another addi- tion to his range of subjects was landscape painting as a sepa- rate branch. He had used it often before as a setting for his figure compositions; but we know of but little pure landscape painting previous to 1856. His best work in portraiture in this period is beyond any belonging to earlier years. The simple, sympathetic interpretation of his son (PL XLV), the animated portraits of Dr. Troost and Mrs. Todd (PI. XXXVIII), and, particularly, the portrait of Major Rollins (PI. XLVII), represent the artist at his best. Of the views of art which actuated Bingham through his life in its service we find a clear statement in his lecture on "Art, the Ideal of Art, and the Utility of Art," prepared for delivery in the State University March 1, 1879, only a few months before his death. We give here some extracts from that lecture: "Michelangelo, whose sublime and unrivaled productions, both in painting and sculpture, certainly entitle him to be regarded as good authority in all that relates to Art, clearly and unhesitatingly designates it as 'the imitation of nature.' "The Oxford student, however, who ranks as the ablest and most popular writer on the subject, undertakes to convince his readers that the imitation of nature, so far from being Art, is not even the language of Art. He boldly goes still further and asserts that the more perfect the imitation the less it partakes of the character of genuine Art. He takes the posi- tion that Art to be genuine must be true, and that an imitation so perfect as to produce an illusion, and thereby make us believe that a thing is what it really is not, gives expression to a falsehood and cannot, therefore, be justly regarded as genuine Art, an essential quality of which is truth 112 GEORCxE CALEB BINGHAM. "More than once in my own experience portraits painted by myself and placed in windows facing the sun to expedite their drying have been mistaken for the originals by persons outside and spoken to as such. Such occurrences doubtless mark the experience of nearly every portrait painter ; but none of them ever dreamed that the temporary deception thus produced lessened the artistic merit of such works An artist who expects to rise to anything like eminence in his profession must study nature in all her varied phases and accept her both as his model and teacher. He may consider every theory which may be advanced upon the subject nearest his heart, but he must trust his own eyes and never surrender the deliberate and matured conclusions of his own judgment to any authority however high. "What I mean by the imitation of nature is the portraiture of her charms as she appears to the eye of the artist. A pictorial statement which gives us distant trees, the leaves of which are all separately and distinctly marked, is no imitation of nature. She never thus presents herself to our organs of vision. Space and atmosphere, light and shadow, stamp their impress on all that we see in the extended fields which she opens to our view, and an omission to present upon our canvas a graphic resemblance of the appearances thus produced makes it fall short of that truth which should characterize every work of Art. But while I insist that the imitation of nature is an essential quality of Art, I by no means wish to be understood as meaning that any and every imitation of nature is a work of Art. "Art is the outward expression of the esthetic sentiment produced in the mind by the contemplation of the grand and beautiful in nature, and it is the imitation in Art of that which creates this sentiment that constitutes its expression. The CONCLUSION . 113 imitation is the word which utters the sentiment. No artist need apprehend that any imitation of nature within the possibilities of his power will long be taken for what it is not. There are attributes of nature which the highest Art can never possess 'The Ideal in Art .AH the thought which in the course of my studies I have been able to give to the subject has led me to conclude that the ideal in Art is but the impressions made upon the mind of the artist by the beautiful or Art subjects in external nature, and that our Art power is the ability to receive and retain these impressions so clearly and distinctly as to be able to duplicate them upon canvas. So far from these impressions thus engraved upon our memory being superior to nature, they are but the creatures of nature and depend upon her for existence as fully as the image in a mirror depends upon that which is before it. It is true that a work of Art emanating from these impressions may be, and generally is, tinged by some peculiarity belonging to the mind of the artist, just as some mirrors by a slight convex in their surface give reflec- tions which do not exactly accord with the objects before them. Yet any obvious and radical departure from its proto- types in nature will justly condemn it as a work of Art. "I have frequently been told, in conversation with persons who have obtained their ideas of Art from books, that an artist should give to his productions something more than nature presents to the eye. That in painting a portrait, for instance, he should not be satisfied with giving a true delinea- tion of the form and features of his subject, with all the lines of his face which mark his individuality, but in addition to these should impart to his work the soul of his sitter. I cannot but 8 114 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. think that this is exacting from an artist that which rather transcends the limits of his powers, great as they may be. As for myself, I must confess that if my life and even my eternal salvation depended upon such an achievement, I would look forward to nothing better than death and eternal misery in that place prepared for the unsaved. According to all our existing ideas of a soul, there is nothing material in its composition. The manufacture, therefore, of such a thing out of the earthen pigments which lie upon my palette would be a miracle entitling me to rank as the equal of the Almighty himself. Even if I could perform such a miracle, I would be robbing my sitter of the most valuable part of his nature and giving it to the work of my own hands. There are lines which are to be seen on every man's face which indicate to a certain extent the nature of the spirit within him. But these lines are not the spirit which they indicate any more than the sign above the entrance to a store is the merchandise within. These lines upon the face embody what artists term its expression, because they reveal the thoughts and emotions, and, to some extent, the mental and moral character of the man. The clear perception and practiced eye of the artist will not fail to detect these, and by tracing similar lines upon the portrait, he gives to it the expression which belongs to the face of the sitter. In doing this, so far from trans- ferring to his canvas the soul of his sitter, he merely gives such indications of a soul as appear in certain lines of the human face; if he gives them correctly, he has done all that Art can do In this lecture Bingham is perfectly frank in his state- ments of the limitations as well as of the possibilities of his art. Many will disagree with him on some points, for example, ^Missouri University Lectures, 1879, p. 311 CONCLUSION. 115 in his ideas of portraiture. While it is true that an artist cannot make his portrait speak, such men as Whistler have, with their keen interpretative power and their spontaneity of representation, truly shown us what is beneath the mask of their sitters; we see the thoughts and feelings and character — the soul itself. But Bingham's greatest interest and his most serious work was, as we have seen, in genre painting. In attempting to estimate the value of any artist we must compare him with contemporaries working in his particular line. If we consider Bingham in connection with artists of today, with their superior training and their revolution of ideals and ideas, we, who share these same conceptions, will be unjust in our estimate of him. Neither is it reasonable to compare him with the great masters of the past. We have found this artist living in a frontier country, where the struggle for existence was the subject uppermost in men's minds. For many years, during the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, there had been but little demand and less time and money for art. Portraiture was the only branch that people felt a need for, and that was almost entirely under the influence of the English school ; America still called England home, and artists still went there for their education. But after the War of 1812 independence began to assert itself in every avenue of life. The interest in the working out of the new governmental problems, the growth of democracy and, above all, the pushing out of colonies into the West brought a gradual cessation of close communication with England and the dependence upon her for leadership. The pioneers in their isolated homes soon forgot their pride of birth and their polished manners; only the future with its alluring prospects was of interest to them. 116 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. A noteworthy artist characteristic of this period was Chester Harding, the itinerant portrait painter whom we have mentioned as Bingham's early inspiration to art. Though he spent some years in Europe, his art was, in great part, the product of American training — or perhaps it were better to say non-training — true and straightforward, with none of the poHsh and pompous courtHness characteristic of such an artist as Sir Joshua Reynolds. This breaking away from foreign dependence was, after all, for the salvation of American art. It was only by this means that our artists could assert their individuality and could portray the thoughts and actions of our nation. It was this desire to represent the life of America that led our artists to enter the field of genre painting. The early American genre partook of the English rather than of the Dutch ideal; its chief interest lay in the subject-matter, not in the creation of an artistic production. From the great English master, Hogarth, on down to Brown, who though English by birth was American by virtue of his long residence and work here, we find the greater interest in the subject. Hogarth's works preach sermons on morality. Brown's tell little anecdotes of familiar life in an affected, sentimental manner. Brown, Inman, Woodville, Eastman Johnson and Wm. S. Mount are the genre painters given place in our histories of American art. The last three were, like Bingham, students at Diisseldorf, and their work shows more of the influence of that school, in general, than does his, more of sentimentality and less of sincerity. Woodville's Reading the News is of the same character as some of Bingham's work, except that there is too much of theatrical exaggeration in it; it is not convincing. Johnson's and Mount's paintings of southern life are interesting in the stories they tell; but the CONCLUSION. 117 types of figures do not appeal to us as being wholly character- istic and true. So also the boys that Brown and Inman are fond of representing are not so real as those by our artist. Compare, for example, Inman's Mumble-the-Peg with Bing- ham's representation of the same in his County Election (Pis. XXVIII and XXIX, 1), or Brown's Sympathy with Bingham's sketch of a boy (PI. XV, 1). We are not sure that Inman's boys are actually enjoying their game, and we feel quite certain that Brown's carefully posed model is no boot- black in reality. In Bingham's representations, on the other hand, we are convinced of the real boy-nature, wholly natural and unconscious of itself ; there is no suggestion of posing for the occasion. Though Bingham was often weak in drawing and usually poor in color, he was true to the life which he represented in as far as his technique allowed. There is a ring of sincerity through his work; so that when we study his pictures, with their great variety of typical figures, we feel that we are becoming acquainted with actual characters. That wily politician, that shrewd old villager, that carefree loafer — all, we are sure, must have been living personalities, and if we had lived among them, we should have found them as they are described for us. Because of this sincere, truthful interpreta- tion and portrayal of the life of his time in Missouri, Bingham's work stands at the head of American genre painting in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and it is upon these worth-while characteristics that his claim to future recog- nition is based. APPENDIX. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF BINGHAM'S PAINTINGS 1830 (about) Portrait of Mr. Henry Miller.^ 1830 (about) Portrait of Dr. John Sappington/ Mrs. A. Morrison, K. C. 1830 (about) Portrait of Mrs. John Sappington,^ Mrs. A. Morrison, K. C. 1830-33 Portrait of Judge David Todd,^ Destroyed. 1830-33 Portrait of Mrs. Wm. Johnston,^ Dr. J. T. M. Johnston, K. C. 1834 Portrait of Col. Caleb S. Stone,^ Mrs. E. H. Fudge, Chicago. 1834 Portrait of Judge Warren Woodson, ^ Dr. Woodson Moss, Columbia, Mo. 1834 Portrait of Hon. Josiah Wilson^, Mrs. J. W. Stone, Columbia, Mo. 1834 Portrait of Maj. James S. Rollins,^ Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1835 Portrait of Bingham, by himself,^ G. B. Rollins Estate, Columbia, Mo. 1835 Portrait of Col. Thubael Allen,^ Miss Helen M. Long, K. C. 1835 Portrait of Mrs. Thubael Allen,^ Miss Helen M. Long, K. C. 1837 (before) Portrait of Gen. W. H. Crowther,^ Mrs. Sue Ewing, Stockton, Kans. 1837 (before) Portrait of Mrs. W. H. Crowther,^ Mrs. Sue Ewing, Stockton, Kans. 1837 Portrait of Dr. Anthony W. Rollins,^ Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1837 Portrait of Mrs. Anthony W. Rollins,^ Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. (118) APPENDIX. 119 1837 Portrait of Mr. Josiah Lamme,^ Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1837 Portrait of Mrs. Josiah Lamme and Son,i Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1837 (about) Portrait of Mr. Thomas Miller,^ Miss Ruth Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1837 Portrait of Judge Henry Lewis, ^ Mrs. Emma L. Lewis, Fayette, Mo. 1837 Portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth Lewis,^ Mrs. Emma L. Lewis, Fayette, Mo. 1837 Portrait of Maj. James S. Rollins,^ Mrs. Mary R. Overall, St. Louis. 1837 Portrait of Mrs. James S. Rollins,^ Mrs. Mary R. Overall, St. Louis. 1837 Portrait of Hon. Roger North Todd,i Mr. N. T. Gentry, Columbia, Mo. 1837 Portrait of Gen. Richard Gentry,^ Mr. W. R. Gentry, St. Louis. 1838-39 Portrait of Capt. John F. Nicolds,^ Mrs. A. A. Brown, Gazelle, Cal. 1838-39 Portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth M. Nicolds,^ Mrs. A. A. Brown, Gazelle, Cal. 1838- 39 Portrait of Mrs. Thos. Shackelford,'^ Mr. G. C. Shackelford, K. C. 1839 (about) Portrait of Miss Martha J. Shackelford,* Mrs. C. C. Hemenway, Glasgow, Mo. 1839 (about) Portrait of Mrs. John Harrison,* Mrs. C. C. Hemenway, Glasgow, Mo. 1839- 40 Portrait of Mr. John H. Turner,* Mr. John H. Turner, Glasgow, Mo. 1839-40 Portrait of Mr. Elijah R. PuUiam,* Mrs. R. B. Snow, Ferguson, Mo. 1839-40 Portrait of Dr. Tamnel T. Crews,* Mrs. Margaret W. Ferguson, Fayette, Mo. 1839-40 Portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth Ward Crews,* Mrs. Margaret W. Ferguson, Fayette, Mo. 1839-40 Portrait of Mrs. Wm. Ward,* Mrs. Margaret W. Ferguson, Fayette, Mo. 120 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. 1840 (about) Portrait of Mrs. E. H. Bingham {The Dull Story),^ Mrs. Wyan Nelson, K. C. 1840 (about) Portrait of Mrs. E. H. Bingham and Son,^ Mr. Thos. B. King, Amarillo, Tex. 1840 (about) Portrait of Mrs. Thos. Nelson,^ Mr. Bingham Birch, Muskoteen, la. 1840 (about) Portrait of Mr. Thos. H. Nelson,^ Mr. Bingham Birch, Muskoteen, la. 1840-44 Portrait of Andrew Jackson.^ 1840-44 Portrait of James Buchanan.^ 1840-44 Portrait of Walker.^ 1840-44 Portrait of Calhoun.« 1840-44 Portrait of Breckenridge.^ 1840-44 Portrait of Webster.^ 1840-44 Portrait of Clay.« 1840-44 Portrait of Van Buren.^ 1840-44 Portrait of John Howard Payne.' Mrs. J. V. C. Karnes, K. C. 1840-44 Portrait of John Quincy Adams (study), ^ Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1840-44 Portrait of John Quincy Adams, ^ G. B. Rollins Estate, Columbia, Mo. 1840-44 Portrait of Mrs. E. H. Bingham,^ Mrs. Thos. B. King, Amarillo, Tex. 1842 (about) Portrait of Mr. Wm. B. Sappington,^ Mrs. J. C. Sappington, Boonville, Mo. 1842 (about) Portrait of Mrs. Wm. B. Sappington,^ Mrs. J. C. Sappington, Boonville, Mo. 1843 (about) Portrait of Horace Bingham at six years, ^ Mrs. Thos. B. King, Amarillo, Tex. 1845 (by) Fur Traders Descending the Missouri,^ Mr. R. S. Bunker, Mobile, Ala., in 1845. 1845 (by) The Concealed Enemy,^ Mr. James A. Hutchison, Pittsburg, Pa., in 1845. 1845 (by) Cottage Scenery,^ Mr. J. D. Carhart, Macon, Ga., in 1845. APPENDIX. 121 1845 (by) . Landscape,^ Mr. James Thompson, N. Y., in 1845. 1845-46 (by) Jolly Flathoatmen,^ Mr. B. Van Schaick, N. Y., in 1847. 1846 (by) Boatmen on the Missouri,^ Mr. J. R. Macmurdo, New Orleans, La., in 1846. 1846 (by) Landscape with Cattle,^ Mr. C. Wilkes, Washington, D. C, in 1846. 1846 (about) Jolly Flatboatmen,^ Mrs. Thos. H. Mastin, K. C. 1847 (by) Lumbermen Dining.^ 1847 (by) Lighter Relieving a Steamboat Aground^, or Watching the Cargo, Mr. Yeatman, St. Louis, in 1847. Mr. S. E. Paine, N. Y., in 1849. 1847 (by) Raftsmen Playing Cards or In a Quandary,"^ Mr. E. Crosswell, Albany, N. Y., in 1847. 1847 (about) Raftsmen Playing Cards,^ Athenaeum Museum, Pittsfield, Mass. 1848 Captured by Indians,* McCaughen & Burr, St. Louis. 1848 Portrait of Dr. Oscar F. Potter,^ City Art Museum, St. Louis. 1848 (by) Stump Orator,^ Mr. W. Duncan, Savannah, Ga., in 1848. 1849 (by) Sketchbook,! Mercantile Library, St. Louis. 1849 (by) Woody ard,^ 1849 (by) St. Louis Wharf, ^ Mr. S. Pell, N. Y., in 1849. 1849 (by) County Politician,^ Mr. John Boyd, Winsted, Ct., in 1849. 1849 (by) Raftsmen on the Ohio,^ Mr. Jas. Key, Florence, Ala., in 1849. 1849 (by) A Boatman,^ "J," Albany, N. Y., in 1849. 1849 Portrait of Dr. Wm. Jewell (full-length ),3 Wm. Jewell College, Liberty, Mo. 122 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. 1849 (probably) .... Portrait of Dr. Wm. Jewell (smaller).* 1850 Portrait of Dr. Lathrop,* Destroyed in 1892. 1850 Portrait of Capt. Wm. Johnston/ Dr. J. T. M. Johnston, K. C. 1850 (by) Shooting J or the Beef,^ 1851 (by) Cattle Piece.^ 1851 (by) Fishing on the Mississippi.^ 1851 (by) The Squatters.^ 1851 (by) The Wood-Boat.^ 1851 (by) Trapper's Return.^ 1851 (by) Canvassing for a Vote.^ 1851 (by) Chess Players.^ 1851 (by) Scene on the OhioJ 1851 Emigration of Daniel Boone,^ City Art Museum, St. Louis. 1851-52 County Election,^ Mercantile Library, St. Louis. 1852 Belated Wayfarers,* MeCaughen & Burr, St. Louis. 1852 Portraits of St. Louis Residents. * 1852 Portrait of Dr. J. B. Thomas,! Mrs. E. Hutchison, Independence, Mo. 1853 (about) Portrait of Miss Sallie More,* Mrs. H. Smith, Prarie Home, Mo. 1853-54 Stump Speaking,^ Mercantile Library, St. Louis. 1854 Result of the Election or Verdict of the People,^ Mercantile Library, St. Louis. 1854 (after) Verdict of the People (replica), ^ Mr. J. W. S. Peters, K. C. 1856 (about) Portrait of Locke Hardeman,* Mr. G. H. Hardeman, Gray Summit, Mo. 1856 (probably) .... Copy of Gilbert Stuart's Athenaeum Wash- ington, ^ Mercantile Library, St. Louis. 1856 (probably) .... Copy of Gilbert Stuart's Martha Washington,* Mercantile Library, St. Louis. APPENDIX. 123 1856-58 Portrait of Washington (full-length), ^ Destroyed in 1912. 1856-58 Portrait of Jefferson (full-length), ^ Destroyed in 1912. 1856-58 Diisseldorf Landscapes,^" Mrs. J. M. Piper, K. C, had two in 1902. 1856-74 Washington Crossing the Delaware,^ Mrs. Thos. H. Mastin, K. C. 1857 (by) The First Music Lesson,^ Mr. E. P. Mitchell, Philadelphia, in 1857. 1857 Jolly Flatboatmen No. 2,^ Mercantile Library, St. Louis. 1859 Portrait of Mr. Elijah S. Stephens,^ Mr. E. W. Stephens, Columbia, Mo. 1859 Portrait of Mrs. Elijah S. Stephens,^ Mr. E. W. Stephens, Columbia, Mo. 1859 (about) Portrait of Hon. Jas. S. Gordon,^ Mr. Marshall Gordon, Columbia, Mo. 1859 Portrait of Henry Clay,^ Destroyed in 1912. 1859 Portrait of Andrew Jackson,' Destroyed in 1912. 1859 (about) Portrait of Miss Annie Allen (child),^ Miss Helen M. Long, K. C. 1859 (about) Portrait of Dr. Benoist Troost,^ Public Library, K. C. 1859 (about) Portrait of Mrs. Mary Troost,i Public Library, K. C. 1859-60 Portrait of Baron Von Humboldt,^ Mercantile Library, St. Louis. 1860 Portrait of Mrs. R. L. Todd and Daughter,^ Mrs. J. C. Whitten, Columbia, Mo. 1860 (about) Portrait of Hon. Samuel L. Sawyer,^ Mrs. S. W. Sawyer, Independence, Mo. 1860 (about) Portrait of Mr. Odon Guitar,^ Mrs. Odon Guitar, Columbia, Mo. 1860 (about) Portrait of Mr. James L. Minor,^ Mrs. S. Minor Gamble, K. C. 124 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. 1860 (about) Portrait of Mrs. Eliza Thomas Bingham,^ Mrs. E. Hutchison, Independence, Mo. 1862 Portrait of Mr. James M. Piper,i Mr. W. E. Thomas, K. C. 1862 Portrait of Mrs. James M. Piper,i Mr. W. E. Thomas, K. C. 1862 Portrait of Dr. Edwin Price,i Col. R. B. Price, Columbia, Mo. 1862 Portrait of Col. R. B. Price, ^ Col. R. B. Price, Columbia, Mo. 1862 Portrait of Mrs. R. B. Price, i Col. R. B. Price, Columbia, Mo. 1862 (about) Portrait of Mrs. Thos. W. Nelson,^ Public Library, K. C. 1862 (about) The Thread of Life,^ Mrs. E. Hutchison, Independence, Mo. 1862 (about) Gen. Lyon and Gen. Blair Starting for Camp Jackson,^ G. B. Rollins Estate, Columbia, Mo. 1865-66 Portrait of Brigadier-General Lyon,^ Destroyed in 1912. 1865-68 Order No. 11,^ G. B. Rollins Estate, Columbia, Mo. 1866 Major Dean in Jail,^ Mr. W. E. Thomas, K. C. 1867 (about) Portrait of Rollins Bingham at six years, ^ Mrs. E. Hutchison, Independence, Mo. 1868 (about) Order No. 11,^ Mrs. J. W. Mercer, Independence, Mo. 1868 (about) Order No. 11 (replica or study — 24 in. x 18 in.), 8 Mr. R. W. Thomas, K. C. 1869 Portrait of John J. Mastin (child),i Mrs. Thos. H. Mastin, K. C. 1869 Portrait of Mr. Thos. H. Mastin,^ Mrs. Thos. H. Mastin, K. C. 1869 (about) Portrait of Mr. Birch,^ Mrs. W. H. Lyons, Buffalo, N. Y. APPENDIX. 125 1869 (about) Portrait of Mrs. Birch/ Mrs. W. H. Lyons, Buffalo, N. Y. 1869 (about) Portrait of Frank P. Blair (study), ^ Mrs. F. P. Blair, Chicago. 1869-71 Portrait of Frank P. Blair (full-length), i Mercantile Library, St. Louis. 1870 (about) Portrait of Mr. Kinney,^ Miss Alice Kinney, New Franklin, Mo. 1870 (about) Portrait of Mrs. Kinney,^ Miss Alice Kinney, New Franklin, Mo. 1870 (about) Portrait of Son and Daughter of Mr. Kinney.^ Miss Alice Kinney, New Franklin, Mo. 1871 (about) Portrait of Maj. James S. Rollins (bust study)^ G. B. Rollins Estate, Columbia, Mo. 1871 (about) Portrait of Maj. James S. Rollins (full-length study), ^ Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1871-73 Portrait of Maj. James S. Rollins (full-length )2 Destroyed in 1892. 1872 Portrait of Mrs. James S. Rollins,^ Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1872 Portrait of Miss Sallie Rodes Rollins,^ Mr. C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Mo. 1872 Pike's Peak (study), » Mr. R. S. Thomas, Blue Springs, Mo. 1872 Pike's Peak,^ Findlay Art Company, K. C. 1872 (probably) .... Four Colorado Landscapes,^" Mrs. J. M. Piper, in 1902. 1872 (probably) .... Moonlight View^^ (hilly scene on the south part of the Gasconade River), Mr. R. W. Thomas, K. C. 1874 The Puzzled Witness,^ Judge James M. Gibson, K. C. 1876 Portrait of Dr. Alexander M. Davison,^ Mr. Edward J. Davison, K. C. 1876 Portrait of Miss Coleman.^ 1876 Portrait of Miss Vinnie Reara.^ 126 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. 1877 (about) Portrait of Mrs. Birch,^ Mr. J. W. Birch, Bunceton, Mo. 1877 (about) Birch Homestead at Boonville,^ Mr. J. W. Birch, Bunceton, Mo. 1877 (about) Palm Leaf Shade,^ Mrs. L. M. Miller, K. C. 1877 (about) Portrait of Bingham by himself,^ Public Library, K. C. 1877 (probably) .... Portrait of Mrs. Thos. W. Nelson,^ Mrs. Wyan Nelson, K. C. 1877 (probably) .... Portrait of Mr. Thos. W. Nelson,^ Mrs. Wyan Nelson, K. C. 1878 (about) Portrait of Judge F. M. Black,i Historical Society, K. C. 1878-79 (probably). .Portrait of Eulalia Hockaday (Red Riding Hood),2 Mrs. F. W. Sneed, Pittsburgh. 1878-79 (probably). .Portrait of Dr. Laws.^ 1878-79 (probably). .Portrait of Mrs. Laws.^ 1878-79 (probably) .. Portrait of Capt. J. H. Rollins.^ 1878-79 (probably). .Portrait of Mrs. J. H. Rollins.^ 1878-79 (probably) . .Portrait of Mr. Wm. Broadwell.^ 1878-79 (probably). .Portrait of Mrs. Wm. Broadwell.* ? Portrait of Dr. Hudson.^ ? Portrait of Dr. Shannon.^ ? Portrait of Dr. Daniel Read.^* ? Old Field Horsed ? Horse Thief. ^ ? Girl at Prayer.^^ ? Winter Scene.^^ ? Painted Lithograph of Sterling Price,^^ Historical Society, K. C. ? Bathing GirU' ? Feeding the Cows.^^ ? Landscape View.^^ ? Landscape View in Colorado.^^ ? Flock of Turkeys.^^ ? Bunch of Letters.^^ ? Portrait of Dr. Lykins." APPENDIX. 127 Portrait of Mr. McCoy.i^ Portrait of Mrs. McCoy.^'^ Portrait of Mrs. Gen, Bingham. Moonlight Scene (14x20 in.).^^ Mr. R. S. Thomas, Blue Springs, Mo. Two Landscapes,^' Miss Elvina Mills, Boonville, Mo. Two portraits, 13 Miss Elvina Mills, Boonville, Mo. Portrait of Henry Bingham, brother of the artist,^'' Mrs. L. J. B. Ne£f, Marshall, Mo. Portrait of Maj. Dubois.^o Portrait of Hon. J. B. Wurnall,^ Mrs. J. W. Wurnall, K. C. Portrait of Mrs. J. B. Wurnall,^ Mrs. J. W. Wurnall, K. C. Portrait of Rev. R. S. Thomas,^' Mr. R. S. Thomas, Blue Springs, Mo. Portrait of Mrs. R. S. Thomas,^' Mr. R. S. Thomas, Blue Springs, Mo. Portrait of Mr. Joshua Belden,* Belden Groves, St. Louis. Portrait of Mrs. Joshua Belden, ^ Belden Groves, St. Louis. Portrait of Captain Sinclair Kirtley.^ Portrait of Mr. Wm. F. Dunnica,^ Mr. Thomas Shepperd, Pittsburgh. Portrait of Mrs. Wm. F. Dunnica,^ Mr. Thomas Shepperd, Pittsburgh. Portrait of Dr. Thos. N. Cockerill,^ Mrs. Florence Follin, Glasgow, Mo. Portrait of Mrs. Thos. N. Cockerill,^ Mrs. Florence Follin, Glasgow, Mo. Portrait of Mr. Jacob Wyan.* Portrait of Mrs. Jacob Wyan,^ Mrs. J. C. Sappington, Boonville, Mo. Portrait of Agnes Nelson Day,^ Mrs. B. F. Addington, St. Louis. 128 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. ? Portrait of Mrs. Robert Aull,^ Mrs. S. M. Hayden, Glasgow, Mo. ? Portrait of two children painted on glass, ^ Destroyed. ? Several Portraits, ^ Mr. Prewitt, Boonville, Mo. »The writer has examined the original paintings, and their dates and authenticity were determined by comparisons of them, definite statements in contemporary newspapers, the dates of the lives of persons represented in portraits and information from relatives and friends of those represented. sSame as » except that the writer has seen only copies (in the form of photographs or engravings) of the originals. 'Information was obtained from contemporary publications. »From the Piper Estate. ''Information given by the owner of the painting. "In the Bingham Estate Sale, 1893. APPENDIX. 129 CHRONOLOGICAL REGISTER OF BINGHAM'S LIFE. (Data in regard to the painting of portraits and le of the genre works are in general not included here; they may be found by reference to the chronological list of paintings). 1811 Mar. 20. Born — in Augusta Co., Virginia. 1819 Family emigrates to Franklin, Missouri. 1820 Meets Chester Harding. 1823 Father dies. Mother and children move to the farm at Arrow Rock, Saline Co. 1827 (about) . Goes to Boonville as cabinet maker's apprentice. Studies law and theology. Meets Harding again and receives first instructions in painting. 1830 (about) . Starts to St. Louis, but is forced to return home on account of illness. 1834 In Columbia, where he first meets Maj. Rollins. Paints portraits. 1835 (about) . Goes to St. Louis. 1836 Feb. 13. In St. Louis. 1836 Marries Miss Hutchison. 1837 (about) . Goes to Philadelphia to study in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. ^ 1840 Delivers speech at the Rocheport Whig Convention. 1840-44 In Washington, D. C, except for six months, which he spent in Petersburg, Virginia. Paints por- traits of statesmen. 1844 Returns to Saline Co., Missouri. 1845 Registered in the American Art Union from St. Louis. 1845 First records of genre and landscape paintings. 1846 (by) .... Has painted Jolly Flatboatmen, which is used by the American Art Union for its annual engraving. 1846 Registered in the American Art Union from St. Louis. 1846 June 19. Is candidate for the Legislature from Saline Co. 1846 Aug. 14. Elected to the Legislature by a majority of three votes. 9 130 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. 1846 Nov. 20. His opponent, Sappington, contests the election. 1846 Dec. 18. Case decided in favor of Sappington. 1847 Registered in the American Art Union from Arrow Rock. 1847 Apr. 21. Lighter Relieving a Steamboat Aground and Raftsmen Playing Cards are on exhibition in St. Louis. 1848 Has done more work in genre painting. 1848 May 1. Declines nomination of Representative from Saline Co. in the Legislature. 1848 July 7. Accepts the nomination. 1848 Aug. 11. Has been elected by a majority of twenty- six over Sappington. 1848 Nov. 29. Wife dies in Arrow Rock, leaving him with three children. 1849 Has finished several new genre paintings. 1849 Feb. 26. From the majority of the Committee on Federal Relations in the Legislature he makes a report accompanied by resolutions on the sub- ject of slavery, with feeling against secession. 1849 Aug. In New York. Has his portfolio of sketches in his studio. 1849 Sept. 28. In Columbia painting portraits. 1849 Dec. 2. Marries Miss Thomas at Columbia. 1851 May 23. In St. Louis (with his wife). On his way home from New York, where he has spent some months. Has painted Emigration of Daniel Boone in his absence. 1851 Oct. 31. Has studio in Columbia. County Election (unfinished), Candidate Electioneering, Chess Players and Scene on the Ohio are in his studio. Plans spending the winter in St. Louis. 1852 Jan. 9. Has studio in St. Louis, where he is painting portraits. County Election is not yet finished. 1852 Mar. 19. Still in St. Louis. Starts subscriptions for engravings of County Election. 1852 Apr. 2. In Columbia with County Election. APPENDIX. 131 1852 June 3. Leaves Columbia for Baltimore as a delegate to the Whig National Convention. 1852 Nov. 21. In St. Louis. 1853 Mar. 25. In New Orleans, where he exhibits the County Election. 1853 May 3. Reaches Columbia from New Orleans. 1853 June 24. Has lately been in Richmond, Kentucky. 1853 Nov. 18. In Philadelphia superintending the prepara- tion of the plate for the engraving of County Election and working upon Stump Speaking, 1853 Dec. 23. Still in Philadelphia. 1854 Sept. 15. Has just returned to St. Louis from Philadelphia, where he has been a year. 1854 Sept. 22. Has finished Stump Speaking and has it in the hands of an engraver in Paris. Working on the Verdict of the People. 1855 Sept, 14. Has a studio in the Grand Jury room of the courthouse in Columbia, where he is painting portraits. 1855 Nov. 14. In Jefferson City, where he has a room in the Capitol, painting portraits. 1855 . Dec. 14. Has lately made a speech in a Whig meet- ing in the Capitol at Jefferson City. 1856 Mar. 14. In Columbia, painting Washington Cross- ing the Delaware (unfinished for eighteen years). 1856 May 16. In St. Louis, exhibiting Verdict of the People. Preparing to leave for the East and for Europe. 1856 In Europe. 1857 Feb. 14. In Diisseldorf working upon portraits of Washington and Jefferson, contracted for in the summer of 1856. 1857 . Dec. 18. In Diisseldorf working upon portraits of Washington and Jefferson and upon a large picture of Jolly Flatboatmen. 1857 The First Music Lesson is on exhibition in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. 1859 Jan. 28. Has reached Jefferson City from Diissel- dorf. 132 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. 1859 Jan. 29. Reaches Columbia, where he visits Maj. Rollins. 1859 Feb. 14. Receives commission from the Legislature to paint portraits of Jackson and Clay. 1859 Apr. 22. In Brunswick, painting portraits. 1859 May 1-7. Receives commission from the Mercan- tile Library, St. Louis, to paint portrait of Baron von Humboldt. 1859 May 13. Has left Columbia for Diisseldorf. 1859 Sept. 9. Has returned with his family from Dussel- dorf , and is in Columbia. 1860 Feb. 24. Has returned to Columbia from Washing- ton City. 1860 Apr. 27. Portrait of Baron von Humboldt has been delivered to the Mercantile Library. 1861 Sept. Son, Rollins Bingham, is born. 1861 At the beginning of the Civil War he enters^the U. S. Army as a private. 1861 In the summer he is appointed Captain of the Irish Company of Van Horn's Battalion of U. S. Volunteer Reserve Corps. 1862 Jan. 4. Appointed State Treasurer and moves to Jefferson City immediately. 1862 May 16. Has exposed Jennison. 1863 Aug. 1. Enters into agreement with the Secretary of State to paint an equestrian portrait of Gen. Lyon. 1864 Jan. 2. Daughter, Clara Bingham, is married to Thos. B. King. 1865 Term of office as State Treasurer expires. 1865 Nov. 24. Living in Independence, working upon Order No. 11. Writes letter to the Legislature explaining his contract to paint the portrait of Gen. Lyon, and sends a study for it. 1866 June 1. Is candidate for Congress from the sixth district, subject to the decision of a conservative Convention. 1866 July 6. Painting Maj. Dean in Jail. APPENDIX. 133 1866 Oct. 6. Has been defeated in the nominating con- vention. Supports the nominee. 1868 May 28. Chosen Elector at the Democratic State Convention. 1868 Dec. 11, Order No. 11 is being finished. 1869 Oct. 1. Has been elected a school director in Inde- pendence. 1870 May 6. Has sold his residence in Independence to move to Kansas City, the only place in which he owned a home thereafter. 1870 July 15. Chas. P. Stewart has gone to Kansas City to study and practice under Bingham. 1870 Sept. 16. Stewart returns to Columbia. 1871 May 5. Has finished portrait of Gen. Frank P. Blair. 1872 Oct. 26. In Colorado. Has just finished View of Pike's Peak. 1873 Apr. 11. Full-length portrait of Maj. James S. Rollins recently finished. 1873 May 2. In Texas. 1873 Sept. 3. In Columbia, making a short visit with Maj. Rollins, on his way to Louisville, Kentucky. 1874 Jan. 23. Has brought suit against Michel Dively for permitting a gambling house to be kept on his premises. 1874 May 11. Becomes president of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners. 1874 July 31. Has accepted a request to become candi- date for Congress from the eighth district. 1874 Aug. 24. Withdraws from the list of candidates for nomination at the Democratic convention in Kansas City. 1874 Dec. 11. Puzzling a Witness is almost finished. 1875 Jan. Appointed Adjutant-General of Missouri. 1875 Jan. 19. Arrives in Jefferson City to begin work in his new office. Boards while there, leaving his family in Kansas City. 1875 Feb. 25. Arrives in Jefferson City from Washington. 1876 Feb. 23. In Washington, looking after the State War Claims. 134 GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM. 1876 Mar. 4. In Washington. 1876 May 1. Returns from Washington. 1876 Aug. 29. Returns from Ripley County, where he had gone to investigate a ku-klux organization. 1876 Sept. 14. In Boonville, putting his son in the Kem- per Family School. 1876 Oct. 24. Granted leave of absence from the Adju- tant-General's office for an indefinite length of time for his health. 1876 Nov. 3. His second wife dies at Fulton. 1877 Jan. 19. Elected Professor of Art in the University of Missouri. 1877 July 6. In Boonville at the residence of Mr. Thos. Nelson engaged in painting portraits. 1877 Sept. 28. Has reached Columbia and is superin- tending the arrangement of his rooms in the Normal Building. . 1878 Mar. 29. In Washington. Has lately published an attack upon Gen. Ewing, to which Maj. Edr- wards replies. 1878 May 3. Visits in Columbia. Will soon leave for Texas to visit his daughter. 1878 May 31. Has returned to Columbia from Texas improved in health. 1878 June 18. Marries Mrs. Mattie Lykins. Goes to Denver, Colorado, for a few weeks. ' - 1878 Nov. 8. Has been appointed one of the commis- sioners to select a design for the Lee Monument in Virginia; the committee is to meet in Rich- mond, Nov. 27th. 1878 Dec. 6. Returns from Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, D. C. (with his wife). They have rooms in Stephens College. 1879 Feb. 28. Suffers a dangerous attack of pneumonia at his rooms in Stephens College. 1879 Mar. 1. Maj. Rollins delivers Bingham's address upon Art in the University. 1879 June 13. Publishes a bitter attack upon Order No. 11. APPENDIX. 135 1879 June 17. Ex-Governor B. Gratz Brown replies to Bingham's attack. 1879 July 5. Leaves Columbia for Kansas City in his usual health. 1879 July 7. Dies in Kansas City. 1879 July 9. Funeral held at his home in the Lykins Institute in Kansas City and burial in the Union Cemetery. V / i r"^ •*-7 GETTY ^^^^^j^llll^^^^^