The North Quabbin area has always been a haven for artists. Among the painters who once inhabited the region were Sarah and Eliza Goodridge, two sisters from Templeton who specialized in painting miniatures in the 1800s.
Both Sarah and Eliza excelled in art, according to Brian Tanguay, President and Curator of the Narragansett Historical Society.
Sarah began by creating drawings on birch bark. Tanguay said that to his knowledge, none of this early work has survived. “The historical society does have a few pencil drawings, start-up sketches, and a set of paper dolls Sarah made for her niece.”
Many of Sarah and Eliza’s paintings were miniatures, most painted on ivory. “We have a few that appear to be on some form of paper but most appear to be on ivory. They soon found that painting on thin ivory was the best way to display their work.”
Tanguay explained that, “Without having the camera to capture your loved ones, painting was the best alternative. It was expensive, so not everyone could afford it.”
Sarah eventually moved to Reading and worked in Boston. Sarah trained with Gilbert Stuart, who stated that her portrait of him was the best he’d ever seen, Tanguay said.
Daniel Webster would also frequent Boston and sit for Sarah. He was impressed with her work and soon commissioned her to do several portraits both while in Boston and in Washington.
“Sarah did quite well for a single woman who was able to buy her own home in the 1820s,” Tanguay said, adding “she would be the person I would visit if I could go back in time.”
Eliza, her sister, lived next door to the Historical Society on Boynton Road; her husband, Ephraim, ran the store which was located in the current Historical Society building.
Among Eliza’s work were portraits of the Stiles family, her friends who once lived next door in Templeton, and eventually moved to Worcester to be more involved in high society affairs, Tanguay continued.
Eliza’s paintings are on display in museums around Worcester. There are also a few known landscapes done by Eliza from the Holyoke area, “but not many. I’ve seen three so far,” Tanguay said.
“While most of the sisters’ paintings are not signed, we think that Eliza painted a large 8-by-10 portrait of her mother, Beulah, in her later years, which is part of the Narragansett Historical Society collection, along with 20 other originals by Sarah and Eliza,” he added.
Tanguay has taken a special interest in the two sisters and their art work. “For the past 30 years, I’ve been organizing and visiting Sarah’s collections at several museums around New England, compiling the complete list of her work and where it is stored,” Tanguay said. Some of his research is currently on display next to the collection at the Historical Society. “One day, it will be published in a book to chronicle her entire life and her work. Her story has drawn interest for 200 years; it’s worthy of a book,” Tanguay continued. He also has a goal of organizing a show of her work either in Worcester, Boston or New York.
There are currently only a few museums that have the sisters’ paintings on display; most of them are stored and can only be seen by appointment.
These museums include Museum of Fine Arts Boston, which houses Sarah’s self-portrait, Cincinnati Art Museum, Currier Museum of Arts in Manchester, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Historical Society, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York Historical Society, Worcester Art Museum, American Antiquarian Society, Yale University, and Narragansett Historical Society, where Eliza’s and Ephraim’s portraits are housed.