The Case of the Undated Cook Portrait

Nelson Cook was very inconsistent when inscribing his portraits. At times he included various combinations of his name, the sitter’s name, the date, and/or the location. And at other times, Cook either did not inscribe his portrait at all, or his inscription did not survive due to damage, or the conservator made the inexplicable decision not to keep the inscription as part of the restoration. This special section will take you through the process this site’s caretakers used to date a portrait that was unspecified by Cook.

The portrait of the young woman to the right was found in May 2025. It was for sale at an internet-based auction house specializing in antiques. The frame is 26.5” x 30.5” and the painting is 20” x 24”. The painting was signed in Cook’s distinctive script on the reverse on the lower frame rail, “Painted by Nelson Cook, Saratoga Spgs.” However, there is no mention of when the portrait was done, nor the sitter’s identity. Although nothing helps us to identify the woman with any degree of certainty, there are a number of hints as to the year she sat for Cook. Let’s explore each of these clues.

 One hint is how Cook indicated the sitter’s Saratoga Springs, NY location: in most instances, when this upstate New York location was noted, the artist wrote out the full word “Springs.” But here he only wrote “Spgs.” The only other known time Cook signed a sitter’s location as “Saratoga Spgs.” was in 1849, when he did so on the reverse of Payn Bigelow’s portrait. 

Perhaps the portrait’s plain background, which transitions left to right from very light gray to a darker gray, provides another clue as to the painting’s year of completion. Did Cook employ this gray transitional background element in any other of his portraits? Interestingly, while not exactly the same transitions, similar ones are noted in a cluster of portraits Cook painted between 1849 and 1851: 1849 Payn Bigelow (again), 1850 Phebe Field, and 1851 Portrait of a Young Girl. But otherwise, the artistry displayed by these three paintings is quite different from our unidentified young woman.

Another hint available to us for dating purposes is the young woman’s clothing. The only other Cook portrait showing the sitter with similar garb is the artist’s painting, Portrait of a Girl.  Both young women are wearing similar, slightly off-the-shoulder dresses with lace adornment at the neckline. Although “Portrait of a Girl” also was not dated by Cook, an outside art historian, who specializes in dating paintings, estimated that the portrait was completed in 1857 0r 1858. But clearly, this dress style was popular for some number of years surrounding the late 1850s.

But when dating a portrait, perhaps the best indicator is the artistic style and level of craftsmanship the artist displayed at this time in his or her career. Cook’s 60-year career provides a wide range of development both in style and quality of artistic execution – from fairly primitive renderings during his very early Canada years in the 1830s, to a much more almost photographic level of maturity in the years leading up to his 1892 death. By the caretakers’ eyes, exclusive of the backgrounds, the Cook portraits that most closely resemble the style the artist employed when painting our young woman were those painted circa 1850: 1847 St. John Bull Lawrence Skinner, 1847 Julia Lowry Skinner, 1848 Richard L. Allen, M.D., 1848 Portrait of a Lady, c. 1850 Millard Powers Filmore, 1851 Portrait of a Young Girl, and 1851 Portrait of a Woman. 

There is one other important clue on the back of the painting that might help us determine when the portrait was painted -- a slightly-torn paper label, which reads: 

First off, the caretakers of this site are not aware of any recorded instance where Cook ever used a professional framer to frame his portraits, especially one as far removed from New York state as Boston. Furthermore, the caretakers are not aware of any instance where Cook ever visited Boston. And although not necessarily conclusive, none of the many letters to and from brother Ransom ever mentioned such a visit.

In addition to what is specified on the label, we know from web-based sources that T.C. Meagher advertised that he gilded frames as well. We also know Meagher moved to 4 Hayward Place in Boston in early 1873, when his previous nearby shop was destroyed by fire. But according to the 1874 Boston Directory, he subsequently relocated across the street to 11 Hayward Place. Consequently, Meagher would have had the portrait in his care at some point in 1873 or 1874 when, according to the label on the back of the painting, Meagher was at 4 Hayward Place. 

But what exact service did Meagher provide at this time? Upon closer examination, we can see the portrait was painted as an oval, which was an especially popular treatment in the middle of the 19th century. But oval compositions started to fall out of favor later in the century, and it was not uncommon for these portraits to be relined and reframed in rectangular configurations. It appears such may have been the case with this portrait, which suggests that Meagher’s rectangular frame post-dated the portrait by some number of years. Afterall, why would Cook have painted the portrait as an oval and then place it in a rectangular frame?  But if reframed at a later date with an entirely new frame, how is Cook’s distinctive signature still visible on the frame’s bottom rail?  Three theories are possible. 

During the reframing process, Meagher may have transferred the bottom rail from the original oval frame to his new rectangular frame to ensure Cook’s signature would stay with the portrait. Or perhaps, Meagher may have simply removed the surrounding oval contours from the original frame and kept the outer rectangular portion intact, including the signed bottom rail. 

To illustrate these two reframing possibilities, see the two frame images to the right. The top photo shows the backside of Meagher’s frame with Cook’s signature visible on the bottom rail (highlighted). The bottom photo shows an example of another, unrelated antique oval frame, which clearly shows a similar bottom frame rail that could be easily transferred to a new rectangular frame. This same oval frame also shows examples of the four corner contours that Meagher may have removed from our young woman’s original frame to easily convert the old oval to a new rectangle. (Also, see Cook’s 1851 Portrait of a Woman, which shows how an oval portrait was oftentimes presented in a rectangular frame.) 

And the third possible theory is that Meagher didn’t reframe the portrait at all. For whatever reason, perhaps whoever commissioned the portrait wanted it rendered as an oval and placed in a rectangular frame from the very beginning. If so, it’s possible the only service Meagher provided at some point in 1873 or 1874 was to regild the painting’s original gold-colored frame.  

Lastly, for sake of our discussion, let’s assume our unidentified young woman was painted by Cook in 1874 and framed by Meagher in the same year. What was Cook’s documented level of artistic craftsmanship at about this time, and how does it compare with the level of maturity displayed by the portrait in question? Cook’s 1877 portrait of brother Ransom shown at top right will serve as our basis of comparison with Cook’s “Unidentified Young Woman” shown at bottom right. As nicely rendered as our young woman is, Cook’s brushwork in 1877 was far superior to what he displayed when painting the young lady. Clearly, she was not painted in the 1870s, but rather some years prior to this.

So where does this leave us? What is the best educated guess as to when “young woman” was painted? The caretakers of this site are convinced that Cook completed the portrait long before T.C. Meagher affixed his paper label to the back of painting in 1873 or 1874. In all likelihood, a number of years passed, and the owner of the portrait, who then lived in the Boston area, took the portrait to Meagher for some type of service -- either a modification to the original frame, and/or a cleaning and regilding of the original frame to restore the brilliance of its gold color. Regardless of exactly what treatment Meagher performed, presumably such service was required after the passage of many years. And given the other clues and hints outlined above, the caretakers of this site are comfortable placing a date of circa 1850 for the completion of Cook’s “Portrait of an Unidentified Young Woman.” We know Cook was painting in Saratoga Springs in 1850, apparently returning home for a time between visits to Baldwinsville near Syracuse briefly in 1849, and an extended stay in Rochester from 1851-1856.  Circa 1850 also would be consistent with Cook’s artistic style and level of maturity at that particular time. And further, it seems reasonable that a mid-19th century portrait would need some type of professional attention after nearly 25 years of being painted and framed.