Justus Dalee (fl. 1826-c. 1848)

Frank and Barbara Pollack, Highland Park, Illinois
Barry Cohen, New York 
Kate and Joel Kopp, America Hurrah, and David A. Schorsch, New York, 1990

Schorsch, David A.. The Barry Cohen Collection, New York: America Hurrah and David A. Schorsch, 1990, p. 65
American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 73, fig. 42

Looks in very good condition; slight discoloration to paper. Not examined out of frame.
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Justus Dalee is known for more than eighty-six precise and delicate pencil and watercolor profiles on paper.¹ His movements, primarily throughout New York State, are documented through listings in city directories, signatures on family records and miniature portraits, and his fifty-two-page sketchbook titled Emblematic Figures, Representations, & to please the Eye, in which he calls himself "Professor of Penmanship."² Although no biographical information has yet been discovered, these sources indicate that the artist went from Palmyra to Troy by 1830, and by 1832 to Cambridge and West Troy, where he made a family record for Isaac C. Gunnison.³ In 1835 Dalee executed six miniature portraits of the Gunnison family, each portrayed in profile from the hips up. He expanded this format by the late 1830s, portraying sitters with their heads in profile but their bodies in full frontal view, as in this lovely portrait of a young girl in a colorful red dress. This portrait is especially appealing because of the daintiness of the child and the clarity of costume and pose, which create a gentle visual rhythm. The black apron with sawtooth border became popular during the latter part of the 1830s, especially worn over a dress in a strongly contrasting color. The zigzag edge is repeated in the small reticule the young girl holds in her hand, as well as in her cuffs, the hem of her pantaloons, and even the shape of one pointed toe. The draped fabric swag on the bodice of her dress is echoed in the gathered beaded necklace and the curve of the bandeau in her hair. By 1840 Dalee was working in Rochester, which had experienced an economic and population boom after the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. He is listed the following year in King's Rochester City Directory and Register as a "Side Portrait Painter," a fair description of this watercolor. Over the next few years, he is found moving across New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and perhaps as far south as New York City, before relocating to Buffalo. There he is listed as a portrait painter for the last time in the 1847-1848 Commercial Advertiser Directory; the next volume cites his occupation as "grocer."⁴-S.C.H.

¹ Justus Dalee is the subject of ongoing research by Elizabeth V. Warren, consulting curator, AFAM. I would like to express my gratitude for her review of this entry.
² The sketchbook is in the collection of Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.
³ Biographical information based on Rumford, American Folk Portraits, pp. 77-79, and D'Ambrosio and Emans, Folk Art's Many Faces, pp. 56-57. In her entry on Profile of Man in Black Suit (N-33.85), Emans cites typewritten notes attached to a portrait miniature of Van Buren Da Lee (collection AARFAM) and two other portraits of members of the "Beauregard family, descendants of the Da Lee and Minten families of New Orleans"; these may suggest that Dalee's origins lie in New Orleans.
⁴ D'Ambrosio and Emans, Folk Art's Many Faces, p. 57.