Charles Loring Elliott the Portraitist By Sheila Tucker, Former Cayuga County NY Historian

Charles Loring Elliott a native of Cayuga County NY became one of the foremost portrait artist of his time. During his career he painted more than seven hundred portraits including many of the period's most successful businessmen, such as glass manufacturer Erastus Corning, Hartford gun magnate Samuel Colt, millionaires William Thompson Walters of Baltimore and William Wilson Corcoran of Washington, as well as writers, artists, and politicians.

Auburn Years
Elliott was born in December 1812 in Scipio NY.  His father, Daniel, an architect and builder soon moved his family to Auburn.  Elliott described his early years in a biographical sketch that appeared in the December 1868 issue of Harper's Magazine.  ´We lived in a plain but comfortable dwelling house, which was situated near the centre of Auburn, then and since celebrated for its two well-regulated institutions, the State Prison and the Theological Seminary, intended by legislators and pious people to be the balance-wheels of society.  My father was an architect of considerable mechanical genius, and many of the 'principal men' of the neighborhood were indebted to his taste and skill for the somewhat imposing mansions which drew the attention of passing travelers."

At age ten, young Charles developed a thriving business.  In his father's workshop he made sleds, wagons, wind-mills and saw-mills which he decorated and sold to the village children. One day in school, his status as the best artist was challenged by another student who drew horses.  Charles took up the challenge and started drawing horses.  Charles collected all the pictures he could of horses to copy but soon realized that he needed to study horses from life.  He later remembered this as the moment when he started thinking as an artist.  He began to draw prancing horses and horses in other stances and his pictures met the challenge.

Charles decided that he wanted to try painting with oils and canvas.  There were no artists in the village to seek advice from so he had to use trial and error.  He was still ten years old when he visited a mansion his father was constructing.  He noticed that men were painting a mural on one wall. After the workmen had left for the day, Charles decided to paint a bridge with a man crossing it in the center of the mural.  The workmen left the artwork on the wall and several years later Elliott's artistic talent was confirmed.  He was visiting the same mansion which had been sold to a new owner.  The new owner had wallpapered the wall with the mural and left a square of the mural exposed featuring Charles' bridge and man.

Syracuse Years
When Elliott was fifteen the family moved to Syracuse where he father designed and constructed many buildings along the Erie Canal.  His father put Charles to work in a dry good store that he owned.  Charles ignored the customers to sit and paint.  His father then placed him in the store of a Scotsman with the same result.  Charles told his father that he wanted to be an artist but his father said he had to learn a trade because artist often starved. Charles was then sent to an Academy in Onondaga Hollow.  Here he "studied little and painted a great deal."  He painted a landscape featuring the academy which was greatly admired by everyone except his father.  His father then decided that Charles would work in his firm on building designs.  This he did for a number of years but finally asked his father to send him to New York to learn painting and his father finally agreed.

New York City Training and the Itinerant years
In 1834 with a letter of recommendation in hand Elliott began to study painting with John Trumbull and John Quidor.  After several years he struck out on his own and spent the next ten years as an itinerant portraitist.

In 1838 he worked as a painter by day in the Legg's carriage shop in Skaneateles and painted portraits in his spare time.  It was also during this time that he did one of the few landscapes of his career-the Head of Skaneateles Lake.  It was also here that he became acquainted with Benson J. Lossing, a wood engraver, the Illman brothers, who were steel engravers and Sanford Thayer an artist from Victory.  These artists were to remain life-long friends.

In 1845 Elliott returned to Auburn to paint a portrait of William Seward and other prominent Auburnians. He leased space from a struggling artist, George L. Clough. After completing his work in Auburn, Elliott arranged for Clough to receive training in New York City.

Aurora Summers
Elliott often spent the summer in Aurora with his sculptor friend Erastus Dow Palmer. During those visits he painted the portraits of the Aurora Inn keeper and his family. The Elliott portraits of William Eagles and his wife Nancy and Mrs. and Mrs. John Eagles which he painted in 1842 are prominently displayed at the Aurora Inn today.

Recognition at last
In 1845 Elliott returned to New York City to exhibit his work at the National Academy of Design and within five years was considered the finest portrait painter of his time.  Of his style, one critic wrote: "There is something about an Elliott portrait.  He brings out the better nature of the sitter and this speaks to us from the inspiration given."  In his later years Elliott lived in Albany where he died September 25, 1868.

Links To Other Famous Cayuga County People
Fillmore | Howland | Martin | Seward | Throop | Tubman | Upton | Wright

More Cayuga County NY History