Background
Benjamin Trott was born probably in Boston, Massachussets in 1770.
Benjamin Trott was born probably in Boston, Massachussets in 1770.
He first set himself up as a painter in 1791 in New York. Several years later he moved to Philadelphia, which was his headquarters for many years, to make miniatures after the portraits of Gilbert Stuart. With his friend Elkanah Tisdale he lived in Albany for a time about 1796. He devoted 1805 to a horseback tour of the "western world beyond the mountains".
In 1812 he exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy, receiving glowing attention from the press.
He was painting in Charleston, S. C. , in 1819. Following an obscure marriage made in Philadelphia he went to Newark, N. J. , in 1823 to obtain a divorce, and lived there painting for several years. The three years following 1829 he spent in New York because, as Dunlap says, he felt he had lost his public in Philadelphia. In 1833 he moved to Boston. His last residence was in Baltimore, where he went in 1839; he appears in the Baltimore directory for 1840-41 as "B. Trott. Portrait and miniature painter.
Possibly from being self-taught, he lacked the authority of a system and always imagined other painters possessed secrets he did not know. Dunlap once saw him experimenting on a miniature by Walter Robertson, half obliterating it in his efforts to discover the secret of its brilliance, making his way "beneath the surface like a mole, and in equal darkness". He refused to exchange miniatures with Edward Greene Malbone, suspecting some mischievous plan. Yet he was a close friend of David Edwin, the engraver; he won the confidence and admiration of Stuart, who is said to have enjoyed his blunt and caustic manner; and he is said twice to have shared a house with Thomas Sully in Philadelphia.
Dunlap's analysis of Trott's personality is confirmed by examples of the artist's work, such as the Joseph Anthony miniatures, which show him insecure in his method and lacking in confidence.
His earliest style is unknown. The first examples known, which date from 1795, were painted with broad free strokes, with studied concentration on the face, with attractive and lifelike color. Much of the ivory was left showing through, and the backgrounds as a rule were light. The characteristics by which any of Trott's best miniatures may be recognized are those which prevail in this period. It is likely that Stuart's influence upon his style was a determining one, but he evolved from this a manner of his own which is distinguished by his talent for characterization. He gave nearly all his sitters the same easy half-front pose and eliminated any but the most necessary details of costume. One flaw fairly common to his drawing was the lengthening of the neck line; the elongated collar is very nearly a Trott signature.
By 1819 the principal change in his style is a broader stroke and more slapdash application. The painterly quality which distinguishes his work from that of the earlier miniaturists, with their engraver technique, became extremely marked in this period. From then on his powers began to decline.
In 1828 his stroke was smaller and much constrained. Trott achieved fine clear color, profiting from frequent chemical experiment. Though his transitions and combinations of color were not so subtle as Malbone's, the effect of naturalness is much the same. Like Malbone he is unmistakably American in his palette. The works of Trott from his best period, around 1805, compare favorably with fine miniature painting in England and France. In his own country half a dozen of his miniatures are excelled only by Malbone's. About fifty of his miniatures have been identified but none of his oil portraits. Among his sitters were Nicholas Biddle, Robert Morris, Charles Wilkins, and Sally Waln.
Trott won high praise for his likenesses. His miniatures varied widely in both conception and technique. His acclaim as a miniaturist stems from his skillful handling of color—he habitually incorporated the bare ivory into the color scheme—and his ability to render the sitter, typically male, with an economy of effort.
William Dunlap says Trott "was of the full medium height, thin, with a prepossessing countenance". He lived his life as a man with a grievance, his sense of inferiority centering about the painter's technical problems.
