Sarah Van Mater Disbrow

Periodca. 1819 - 1821

MediumPastel on paper

Dimensions25.25 × 21 in. (64.1 × 53.3 cm)

ClassificationsPortraits

Credit LineBequest of Henry W. Disbrow, 1936

Object number1984.525.1

DescriptionThree-quarter length portrait of an adult female looking left, with blue eyes and brown hair in a braided coronet held in place by a tortoiseshell comband with short curls framing her face. She is wearing a high-waisted white dress with full long sleeves ending in stacked corded cuffs, a triple ruff collar with scalloped edges, and a blue sleeveless spencer bodice with a deep v-neck, double piped edge, and gathered upper sleeves with corded binding. The subject holds a blue purse in her left hand with a patterned gold frame and double wrist chain. She also wears oval yellow earrings with a pearl surround, and a gold and black ring on her left hand. The plain background is a cool blue-green. Mounted on wooden stretchers and lined with a newspaper sheet from the New Brunswick Fredonian dated 9 December 1819.
Curatorial RemarksThe image of Sarah Van Mater Disbrow includes fashion choices both appropriate and available to a woman in Sarah’s economic and social position. Her rich brown hair was curled in small clusters at her temples. A heavy braid was coiled atop her head and held in place by a boldly figured tortoiseshell comb. Over her white dress, Sarah wore a blue silk spencer, a type of over bodice or jacket popular in the early nineteenth century. The blue spencer echoed the blue of the stylish silk handbag she held in her left hand.NotesSarah Van Mater Disbrow (1793 - 1875?) was a daughter of Gilbert Van Mater (1762 - 1832) and his first wife Margaret Sprague Van Mater ( 1763 - 1798). In 1812, she married John Henry Disbrow (d. 1837), a first cousin and son of her father's sister Catherine who also had her portrait painted by Micah Williams. The Disbrows had six children, none of whom married. The family first settled in South Amboy, and later in Spotswood, Middlesex County. John Henry Disbrow served as a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, a New Jersey State Assemblyman, and a Freeholder from South Amboy.

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