James Sharples [or Sharpless (English/American, 1751/52-1811), or a member of his family, "Increase Sumner, Justice of Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (1782-1797)", c. 1794-1796., pastel on very thin laid paper, unsigned, 9 1/2 in. x 7 3/8 in., in an early 19th c. giltwood frame (c. 1814-1824) inscribed with names of artist and sitter, the latter's title and dates of incumbency. E1200-1800 Note: Sharples (who was also contemporaneously called "Sharpless", as in the period inscription on this frame) was an English portrait artist educated in France, who began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1779. In 1793-1794 he emigrated to America with his artist wife-Ellen Wallace Sharples (1769-1849), who had been one of his pupils at Bath- and his artist sons, Felix Thomas (c. 1786-after 1824) and James Jr. ( c.1788-before 1849); between 1794 and 1796 they formed a team of itinerant portraitists, traveling "through the New England states and into the South" (Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 17, New York, 1935, p.27). Since those years coincide with the later term in office of this sitter, together with one of the other related Justices of Massachusetts whose portraits are framed en suite with this one (see the Sharples family portraits of "Dana" and "Parker" in this catalogue , it may thus be assumed that the two pastel portraits of 1790s sitters ("Dana" and "Sumner") are-or are based on-James Sharples originals made in that period, while the later "Parker" may have been executed, in its differing oil medium, by Felix, who might have returned to Massachusetts during the last decade of his life. In any event, the identical frames of these three judicial portraits (which seem likely to have constituted an official commission for a matched set) could only have been made during the incumbency of Parker, who came to the bench after the deaths of his colleagues Sumner and Dana.