Background
Edward Greene Malbone was born on August 1777 at Newport, Rhode Island. The painter's grandfather, Capt. Godfrey Malbone, went to Newport from Virginia as a young man. He soon claimed a share of Newport's profits in the rum trade, and with his wife, Katherine Scott Malbone, established himself in the community. The artist's father, John Malbone, was the eighth of ten children.
For a time he was engaged in the West-Indies trade. At his death in 1795 he left an estate valued at $5, 500. His burial was attended with ceremonies conducted by the Marine Society, and an obituary in the Newport Mercury referred to his title of brigadier-general in the Rhode Island militia, to his substantial qualities as a citizen, and to his philanthropy. He had several times served as vestryman in Trinity Church.
More obscure is the artist's mother, Patience Greene, to whom, tradition says, John Malbone was never married. By her Malbone had five children: Edward, Henry, Harriet, later Mrs. John Whitehorne; Mary, later Mrs. Benjamin Rathbone; and Sarah, later Mrs. John Knight. Their birth dates are not recorded, and it was not until after their father's death that the three sisters were baptized in Trinity Church with the name Malbone.
Education
Harriet Malbone Whitehorne, writing in 1834, said that the family lived in seclusion in Newport and refers to an "accumulation of evils" not of a pecuniary nature. Edward Malbone numbered among these evils the neglect of his early education. It is possible however that this neglect assisted the development of the painter by throwing him upon his own resources.
Career
As a small boy, Malbone showed an inventive genius and facile hands in fashioning kites with streamers of fireworks, in cutting moulds and in making little lead toys. He early began to draw, copying any picture or illustration at hand. He made his own brushes and paints and at the age of eleven or twelve, he started to draw gods and goddesses in India ink on small pieces of ivory or bone. These he cut himself and framed in twisted wire.
At one time the local theatre contributed to his artistic education for in it he learned to paint scenery. He finally painted an entire scene which won him a ticket of admission and local renown. But chiefly he painted heads, soon attempted likenesses, and finally devoted himself entirely to portraiture.
In the fall of the next year, 1794, Malbone left home without telling anyone but his sister, Harriet, and went to Providence where he set up as a professional miniature painter, an act of considerable rashness in a lad of seventeen. In a letter to his father shortly after his arrival in Providence, he said he expected to succeed in his project and hoped soon to furnish material aid in support of the family. "I must conclude, " he wrote, "with making use of that name which I shall study never to dishonor. Your dutiful son, Edward G. Malbone".
That his confidence in his ability to paint miniatures was justified is shown by his immediate success in Providence. During his stay of a year and a half, he drew commissions from the best families and, if an extent receipt is typical, charged $23. 33 for his portraits. The few known examples of his first work in Providence were brought together for the first time in 1929 during an exhibition of Malbone miniatures held at the National Gallery of Art. They show the use of fine stipple for modeling the face, scrupulous regard to detail in finishing face and costume, and careful painting in the background.
In October 1795, Malbone was called home to attend the funeral of his father. He returned to Providence, but in the spring of the following year established himself in Boston. There his ability was quickly recognized and his charming manner won him a circle of friends. He renewed his friendship with Washington Allston, then a student at Harvard, whom he had known at Newport. Too much attention from Boston society might have interfered with his career, had he been less determined to perfect his art. He told Dunlap that his average allowance for work each day was eight hours.
The next two years Malbone divided between New York and Philadelphia. In the autumn of 1800, he went to Charleston, where new friendships included one with the artist Charles Fraser. His technique by this time had changed from a stiff, detailed style to a freer method.
He used delicate interwoven lines of color which performed the double function of creating form and giving color. The backgrounds are light and simple, kept entirely subordinate to the subject. The miniature of Thomas Lowndes, an excellent example of this second style, illustrates Malbone's masterly use of line. In May 1801, he and Allston went to London.
Though Malbone admired Shelley and Cosway he was able even at this time to surpass them in portraying individuality. Benjamin West, the president of the Royal Academy, praised Malbone's ability after seeing one of his miniatures and advised him not to "look forward to anything short of the highest excellence. " While in London Malbone painted "The Hours" which is now in the Providence Athenaeum. He returned to Charleston in December 1801.
From this time another or third style is recognizable in his painting, a development of the second period. He used the same delicate lines of color in painting the face but the stroke is even freer and somewhat broader. Subtle transitions give the effect of smoothness. The size of the ivory becomes larger, the largest known portrait being seven inches by five, a beautiful three-quarter-length portrait of Eliza Mason painted in 1805. Latterly, he received fifty dollars for his portraits.
Most of the years 1804 and 1805 were spent in Boston and in December 1805, he sailed for Charleston, intending to go again to London in the following spring. But in March he contracted tuberculosis and was forced to give up his painting.
Neither horseback riding nor a trip to Jamaica gave him relief, and at the home of his cousin, Robert Mackay, in Savannah, Georgia, he died on May 7, 1807, at the age of twenty-nine. He was buried in the Colonial Cemetery at Savannah.
Views
Quotations:
"Mr. West is decidedly the greatest painter amongst them for history. Mr. Lawrence is the best portrait painter . .. Amongst miniature painters, I think Mr. Shelly [sic] and Mr. Cosway the best. "
Personality
Malbone kept much to his own room and was somewhat of a trial to his brother and sisters who thought him unsocial and different. His earnestness and passion for work, amounting to a creative fury, were remarkable in a young boy and figured as a source of power in his later career. He used to visit the fascinating shop of Samuel King who made compasses and quadrants and sometimes portraits, and who lent him engravings to copy and helped him with his painting.
In spite of this help, Malbone must be considered a self-taught artist, for by painstaking and constant copying he taught himself to draw and then learned for himself the difficult technique of miniature painting. When at the age of sixteen he painted a head of Thomas Lawrence on paper which was thought a work of genius, his father sent the picture to a painting master in Philadelphia for criticism, but the master sent word back that the boy would take the bread out of his mouth and named an exorbitant fee for giving him lessons, and the question of a teacher was dropped.
His self-portrait painted in 1797 pictures a serious young man possessed of poise and charm, with powdered hair, and wearing the elegant costume of the day. He was tall and slender and Dunlap says by nature of the good constitution. It is said that Malbone sometimes painted on hard wood, inlaying pieces of ivory for the face and hands. He always placed his subject on a seat somewhat higher than his own and while at work never conversed. His signature, sometimes a neat and graceful "Malbone, " sometimes "E. G. Malbone" or again "E. G. M. " or "E. M. ," is usually very delicately painted or scratched in some inconspicuous corner of the ivory.
Malbone's genius as a technician and as a portrait painter is undisputed. The great variety resulting from his continual and thoughtful experimentation is one of his chief claims to superiority over other miniaturists. This variety is a result not merely of his inventiveness in method but of his ability in characterization, an ability that lifts his art out of the merely good and places it with the most distinguished.
