Grief Shapes Elizabeth as an Arts Patron

“How could we dream of the fearful storm so soon to burst upon us?” Elizabeth Colt said referencing the indelible grief she would experience in her life. Sam, her husband dies from gout seven years into their marriage. She tragically lost all five of her children. Below I coupled, Elizabeth’s reflections for each child with an object of art or architectural feature to illustrate the ways her grief shaped and personalized her choices in selecting works of art for her memorials and in her private collection.

Samuel, her first child, born prematurely on February 24, 1857 died in infancy. Elizabeth said, “For ten months the bright loving little baby made new sunshine in our happy home, but when he had made himself so tenderly beloved, he was after a short but painful illness, borne so patiently, gathered into the arms of the Good Shepherd.” The stained glass window in the Church of the Good Shepherd, a memorial to her husband and three of her children, includes a multi-foil window with a “protecting angel” bearing its infant to heaven. Author William Hosley asserts “the posture, gaze and hairstyle of the baby being transported to heaven bear a remarkable resemblance to a portrait bus the Colts commissioned of their firstborn.

Caldwell, born November 24, 1858, Elizabeth said, “a little son was given…and home grew joyous again in the smile of the bright baby boy.” Named after his two great-grandfathers, Caldwell and Holt he was enthusiastically embraced life on the open waters as a yachtsman. The only surviving child into adulthood, Caldwell died in 1894 a mysterious death sailing in Punta Gorda, Florida in his winter boat, Oriole. Elizabeth with architect for the Church of the Good Shepherd, designed the Parish House, “one of the eccentric masterpieces of Victorian American architecture,” author Hosley described. Nautical motifs “pile up like biographical confection on this remarkable boat-shaped monument.”

Elizabeth (“Lizzie”), “Dark-eyed baby Lizzie, the pet of all,” she was especially adored by her father Sam, died in the summer of 1860 after the return from the Cape. Years later Elizabeth wrote, “When the chill October winds were blowing, our Lizzie folded her pale hands and closed the dear eyes forever.”

Henrietta born May 23, 1861, “Like little Lizzie, she too, at an early age showed some absorbing love for her father, rejoicing his saddened heart with new hopes for the future.” She too succumbed to illness and died, ten days after her father Sam in January 1862.

Unborn, Not long after Sam’s funeral, Elizabeth miscarries a child.

As a way to connect you more deeply with the losses of her two daughters and unborn child, I present the painting “Vale of St Thomas Jamaica, 1867” by Hudson River School painter Frederic Church, commissioned by Elizabeth for her Picture Gallery at Armsmear, The landscape work evokes an emotional overtone of both loss and spiritual renewal and illustrates the way her deep grief shaped her choices as an art collector.