From collection Paintings Collection
Elizabeth Tailer Nelson (1667–1734)
Elizabeth Tailer Nelson came from a family of influential Bostonians. A local artist probably painted her portrait around 1685 upon her marriage to John Nelson. She wears a silk brocade dress trimmed with lace and embellished with pearls and jewels. On a delicate gold chain, she holds a pet squirrel, a symbol of the young woman’s grace and discipline. The landscape in the background, featuring an exotic parrot in a tree, is a fanciful one, likely derived from a European print source.
Details
Elizabeth Tailer Nelson (1667–1734)
circa 1685
Oil on canvas portrait of a woman in a long floral silk damask dress with lace trim, draped with a black mantle, wearing pearl earrings and a four-strand pearl necklace, standing next to a table covered with a red silk damask tablecloth, and holding a pet squirrel on a gold chain; dark background with open window to the left of the sitter featuring a painted landscape with a prominent tree with parrot; in carved gilt wood frame.
49 x 42 in. (framed); 42 x 35 in. (unframed)
Descended in the Nelson and Lloyd families of Boston, Massachusetts.
2020.5.2
Gift of Orme Wilson III and Elsie Wilson Thompson in memory of Alice Borland Wilson
