This miniature portrait is signed "De Meucci" for Antonio Meucci, an Italian miniature painter who was active in New Orleans and New York between 1818-1837. His wife Nina Meucci was also a miniature painter. The sitter is unknown. 1113
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4 comments:
Where can a collection of miniatures by Antonio Meucci be found? I have an ancestor, Thomas Barksdale of Hilton Head Island, SC who was miniatured by him and I would like to find out where the original is located.
Is there a biography describing his career as a miniaturist? The only articles I can find describe him as an inventor (telephone).
Joseph Lawton
j.lawton@yahoo.com
I am not aware of a biography about him, but there are portraits by him in the New York Historical Society. A list of four portraits by Meucci is in their 1941 catalogue, where they call him Anton Meucci. Unfortunately at that time it does not include the name Barksdale. However, they may be able to tell you more about him.
I have recently recived the following interesting email about Antionio Meucci and so have copied the main points here, as further information about him.
""To my surprise, I found in it a portrait made by Antonio Meucci, my ancestor.
I am not particulary engaged in miniatures, but I have a very keen interest in my family backgrounds, so I‘ve been doing some genealogical reserch on the subject.
I didn’t know of the exact relation I had with this person till about 5 years ago, in spite of having 4 or 5 miniatures made by him. It's rather difficult to investigate him because there is another Antonio Meucci who also lived in USA in the XIX century and is esteemed actually to be the real inventor of the telefone, not Graham Bell.
In summary, the miniaturist Antonio Meuuci is one of my ggggrandfathers.
Antonio (Anthony) Meucci worked in USA New Orleans, New York, Salem, Virginia etc with his wife Nina till 1827.? He appears in Cartagena- Colombia in 1830 coming from Cuba and Jamaica. In Colombia he painted Simon Bolivar just before he died, and he made several copies of the miniature.
His daughter Sabina Meuuci married my great grandfather Richard Souter a Scott, in Colombia
About 1840, Meucci was painting in Lima- Peru. Her daugthter Sabina and here children who was a widower by then, was with him.
Meucci may have worked also in Ecuador by 1850. I have no data about when or where he died, neither his wife.
His Daughter Sabina and children, including my great grand father Frederick Souter emigrated to Valparaiso Chile about 1850’
If you are interested, I can send you more complete data about our miniaturist. I would like to send you fotos of my miniatures, that are in good condition and with original frames so to have any interesting data or opinion about them. I would be very grateful.
Yours truly, Jorge Bianchi Souter""
I have a pair of miniatures which were painted in 1826 in Boston with full receipt on the back. So apparently, he travelled quite a bit.
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