Individuals >> Elliott, Charles Loring (1812-1868)

Artist.

Charles L. Elliott’s artistic talent was not allowed to blossom until he reached adulthood. His father, "an architect, did not encourage the boy’s artistic ambitions and placed him as a clerk in a store" (J. Holt). In 1834 his father finally relented and Charles traveled to New York City to study painting. Some of Elliott’s teachers encouraged him to follow his father into a career as an architect, but he remained devoted to his painting. Elliott spent ten years as a starving artist before opening his own studio in 1845. That year he received accolades for his portrait of Ericsson, which was "being called the best American portrait since the time of Stuart" (J. Holt).

A. L. Rawson identifies Elliot as a Pfaffian and contends that he "was the best portrait painter of that time. A pupil of Gilbert Stuart, who painted the only really popular likeness of George Washington, he was said to have many of the fine qualities of the master, and also many of his own" (103). J. C. Derby judges Elliott’s painting of Fletcher Harper to be “as near a perfect representation of the human face as was ever produced by a portrait painter" (643). Elliott also created a portrait of Fitz-Greene Halleck. His association with various Pfaffians is uncertain, but he is linked to Ada Clare, and he may have attended some of her parties at her 42nd Street home (Rawson 103).

References & Biographical Resources

Clark, L. Gaylord. "Charles Loring Elliott." Lippincott's Magazine. Dec. 1868: 652-657. [more about this work]

[pages: 652-657]

Derby, J.C. Fifty Years among Authors, Books and Publishers. New York: G. W. Carleton and Co., 1884. [more about this work]

Elliot's work is included in Frederick S. Cozzens's first published volume of prose and verse sketches (539).

Derby writes that Elliot's "portriat of Fletcher Harper is believed to be as near a perfect representation of the human face as was ever produced by a portrait painter." Derby relates an anedote about Elliot told by Robert S. Chilton that Chilton feels shows "a strong trait of his amiable character -- a disposition to encourage young and struggling members of his profession -- and being highly comic withal, is oneof the funniest, and as I happen to know, founded on fact" p. 643-644 (643). [pages: 539,640,643-644]

Holt, Jean Mackinnon. "Charles Loring Elliott." Dictionary of American Biography. Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2006. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC. [more about this work]

Lester, Charles Edward. "Charles Loring Elliott." Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Dec. 1868: 42-50. [more about this work]

[pages: 42-50]

Rawson, A. L. "A Bygone Bohemia." Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 1896. 96-107. [more about this work]

A member of Clare 's coterie of Bohemians. He was a "portrait painter" (103). [pages: 103]

Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II, Crane-Grimshaw. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888. [more about this work]

Appleton claims that Elliott is to have painted over 700 portraits of the predominant figures of the era. [pages: 329(ill.)]