Margaret Priestly Williams

Periodca. 1825

MediumPastel on paper

Dimensions24.5 × 20.5 in. (62.2 × 52.1 cm)

ClassificationsPortraits

Credit LineMarshall P. Blankarn Purchasing Fund and Museum Purchase, 1980

Object number1980.3.4

DescriptionThree-quarter portrait of an adult female facing left, wearing a black dress with a slightly dropped waist of the early to mid 1820s, with a wide waistband, fitted bodice, and sleeves that have puffed shoulders gathered at the extreme upper arms. She is also wearing a double pleated ruffled collar of spotted batiste or mull. An elaborate cap of spotted sheer white mull or batiste features a high puffed crown with ruffle along the top of the crown seam and a single pleat ruffled edge along the front and down to freehanging lappets. The subject has a pale complexion with medium brown eyes under slightly heavy dark brown brows. Her dark brown hair is parted in the center and coiled above the ears. A plain medium gray background has brownish overtones.
Curatorial RemarksMargaret Williams dressed simply. Her day cap, with its elongated front extensions, or lappets, framed Margaret’s long neck. She wore no jewelry, not surprising when one recalls that Micah Williams was placed into debtors’ prison at the end of 1814. Margaret was pregnant with the couple’s fourth child when the Middlesex County sheriff and his men arrived at the doorstep to seize the family’s household possessions. Margaret’s likeness is currently the only documented portrait of a family member that the artist created. This portrait, dating from about 1825, descended within the Williams family from Micah’s and Margaret’s daughter Arietta to Arietta’s granddaughter Anna I. Morgan. After Miss Morgan’s death in 1975, the portrait passed to her great niece, Dorothy (Mrs. Talmadge D.) Smith, from whom it was purchased by the Monmouth County Historical Association. NotesThis simple and restrained image of the artist’s wife depicted Margaret Priestly Williams (1787 - 1863) at approximately 38 years of age. Margaret was the oldest of eight children of John Priestly (1760-1846) and Catherine Voorhees (?-1846). Margaret and Micah were married on 17 December 1806. The couple had seven children: Eliza, Catharine Priestly, Arietta, Henry, John, Ralph, and James. After her husband’s death in November of 1837, Margaret lived the remainder of her life in New Brunswick. Census records from 1840 indicate that she may have lived for a time with her aged parents. Margaret died in 1863 at the age of seventy-three. Her brief obituary which appeared in the local newspaper described her as the “widow of Micah Williams.”

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