Portrait of Joseph Ball (1734?-1805?) of New Jersey,
Ink and gauche with gilt highlights
Dimensions: Height – 12 ¾” Width – 10”
Maker: Signed and dated LR “Frederick Chapman, 1778”
Location: probably New York or New Jersey
Date: 1778
Commentary: Frederick Chapman was a silhouette artist who seems to have specialized in portraits of Revolutionary War soldiers. Five of his six known works are of military figures. Most subjects were from units with origins in New York and New England although Chapman painted a silhouette of Robert Bolling of Petersburg Virginia, dated 1781, in a format virtually identical to his portrait of Ball. Several include stone walls or fences that serve to frame the subject. His most well developed surviving portrait is his detailed depiction of Major Hugh Maxwell of Charlemont, Massachusetts on horseback, now in the collection of Historic Deerfield. Chapman signed the piece “F.C. Harlem/1781.” Maxwell was stationed in New York in 1781 and may have been among the troops encamped in the Harlem area of Manhattan. At least five other works by Chapman have been recorded: the aforementioned of Bolling and Maxwell, a portrait of Josiah Moseley dated 1788 exhibited at the Taft Museum, Cincinnati, a 1777 portrait of Abraham Gould, and a soldier identified as Sergeant Stephen Horton and his wife, Submit, illustrated in a brief article on Chapman published in American Heritage Magazine (June/July 1979).
Little is known about Chapman but he may have himself been a soldier. Pension files from the Revolutionary War record that a Frederick or Frederik Chapman, a resident of Windsor, Connecticut, served in the Connecticut line.
The DAR Patriot Index identifies two privates from New Jersey with the name Joseph Ball. A tombstone in the Bloomfield Cemetery, Essex County, New Jersey records the burial there of Revolutionary War Soldier, Joseph Ball, Jul. 29, 1734 – Sep. 2, 1805.
Condition: The portrait survives in excellent condition with only the expected mild toning to the paper and fading of the gilt highlights. It is under old glass in an early nineteenth century, gold leaf frame.
Additional Photos:
Signature Detail
Title Detail
