Dorchester Illustration no. 2405 Burnt Poker Portrait of Isaac Withington
The Dorchester Historical Society has recently acquired a burnt poker portrait of Dorchester Resident Isaac Withington by the artist Robert Ball Hughes. The Society also owns a bust by Ball Hughes of Washington Irving. Isaac Withington, the subject of the portrait, was born in Dorchester in 1802 and died here in 1877. Perhaps you will agree that after having seen the portrait, you would recognize Mr. Withington if you were to meet him. Ball Hughes’ subjects were usually famous men and literary and artistic scenes. It might seem odd for him to create a portrait of a person of no fame, but Withington lived on Harvard Street, only a few blocks away from Ball Hughes’s home at 3 School Street, so perhaps they were friends.
Pyrography is the art of burning sketches into wood using a hot poker. A late 19th-century publication, Wide Awake, a serial miscellany of topics from art and literature, described the technique in 1885: [Regarding] “the drawing on wood with a hot iron (otherwise known as “poker-pictures”). The lines are burnt upon the wood and produce the effect when varnished, of a painting in glazed oils, such as bitumen or mummy–the color of the burnt line being a rich brown upon the soft creamy tone of the wood. the late Mr. Ball Hughes made many pictures in this manner, producing varied effects by the skilful use of his iron rod.”
William Dana Orcutt said in Good Old Dorchester (Cambridge,1893), 385-386:
“Mr. Hughes manifested his artistic nature in more ways than one. He excelled, among other things, in executing what are known as “poker sketches.” These are pictures made on whitewood, the only tools used being pieces of iron, which were heated to a white heat. Every touch of the hot iron leaves a mark which cannot be effaced, and the work is so trying to the nerves that only a short time each day can be devoted to it.
The effects of color can only be appreciated when seen. It seems incredible that such artistic results could have been produced in this way. Among the works of this kind, many of which are now in the possession of Mr. Hughes’ son-in-law, Mr. Benjamin F. Brown, may be mentioned “The Trumpeter,” “The Monk,” “Falstaff Examining his Recruits,” — embracing a dozen or more figures, —”Rembrandt,” “Don Quixote,” “Shakespeare,” “Rubens,” and “The Scotch Terrier.””
There are a few examples of Ball Hughes’ other burnt poker drawings at these links
http://www.geocities.ws/Paris/Rue/4029/antique.html
http://carverscompanion.com/Ezine/Vol8Issue5/KMenendez/KMenendez2.html
Robert Ball Hughes was an artist, born in London in 1804, who immigrated to America in 1829. He and his wife Eliza went first to Washington, D.C., where he sculpted a bust of President Jackson, then New York City, where he sculpted a bust of Alexander Hamilton and then a life-size statue of Hamilton, said to be the first marble statue cared in America. They later moved to Philadelphia, where he won a competition for an Equestrian Statue of George Washington sponsored by the Order of the Cincinnati, but the project was not completed due to the failure of the Bank of the United States. In 1839 he was hired by the US Mint to modify the design for the Seated Liberty coins.
In 1842 they moved to Dorchester, where Ball Hughes was commissioned to produce a bronze statue of mathematician and astronomer Nathaniel Bowditch. This statue was the first large bronze to be cast in the United States.
The Ball Hughes first lived on Adams opposite the site that would later become the Cedar Grove Cemetery. Then in 1851 they moved to 3 School Street at the corner of Washington and School Streets. The house is still there, though quite altered. They entertained some of the world’s celebrities including Charles Dickens and Jane Stuart, the artist.
Ball Hughes produced many other works, and in later life he turned to poker drawings. He was one of only a few noted artists in this medium.
