History:This is a three-quarter profile of a young man with fair complexion, brown eyes, a high forehead and wavy brown hair. He is wearing a dark suit with a Byronic black tie. The background is shaded from light on the right to dark on the left. The miniature is signed by the artist and dated on the reverse side, "John W. Dodge September 14, 1847" and is listed as having been painted in Nashville. The artist's account book for 1847 lists this as "Mr. William Wales, editor of the Nashville Banner, aval. $25, Never collected," which probably indicates that it was a complimentary piece. It is encased in an old carved, wood gold frame with a faded lavender mat. This portrait was exhibited in the Birmingham Collects: American Art Since 1776, an exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art in 1976.
Notes:William Wales lived part of his adult life at Limestone, Alabama, just south of nearby Pulaski, TN. Wales was a poet, writer and co-editor of the South Western Monthly , a Nashville magazine published in 1852. The magazine attempted to build up native southern literature and was advertised as a "journal devoted to literature and science, education, the mechanic arts and agriculture." It was noted for its narratives of the Indian Wars.
