D.Shaughnessy
Walker, Kent, OH TUTTLE FILE 3/29/07
Subject: Oil painting of “Helen at Six Years Old”
~(Helen Schmidt (Davidson) Birthdate l888)
Oil on canvas/stretcher:
24” x 42” painting. Probably
original frame. Framed 34” x 54”
Painting signed by Artist: 1894 Franklin
Tuttle (1916)
"TUTTLE, Franklin
(Artist) late 19th c.
Addresses: NYC,
1888, 1890. Exhibited:
NAD, 1888, 1890.
Sources: Naylor, NAD.”
Who was Who in American Art
1564-1975
Vol. III P-Z Sound View Press, l999
(Information from New York
Historical Society)

Some water damage around stretcher and left eyelid.
Needs cleaning.
Signature:
FRANKLIN TUTTLE. 1894
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
Little biographical information except he was a NYC
artist. Research follows. See also Askart.com
NOTE: This is not C. Franklin Tuttle
c. 1841-l893; Charles F. Tuttle died in l893 (father?).
RESEARCH ON ARTIST: FRANKLIN TUTTLE
Research: Albert Elkins, Designer, National
Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Franklin Tuttle b. 1866
– died 1916
A 1929 article: “Franklin Tuttle painted NEW YORK
WORTHIES OF FORTY YEARS AGO. Exhibition of historical portraits of past
presidents of Union League Club including Hoppin, FL. Olmsted, Hamilton
Fish, John Jay, etc. General
Grant and Lincoln.
Is the painting older than the date of the article?
-- New York Historical Society note
from Eric Robison, Reference Assistant. An artist Franklin Tuttle is
mentioned twice in the New York Times:
1)
A 12 January 1894 Article in the TIMES mentions
another painting (in addition to the Union League group portrait I had
originally queried) by a Franklin Tuttle—A Corner in the Union
League Club” which includes six portraits of clubmen.
2) A 19
September 1893Times article describes an historically themed
painting hanging in the Hotel New Netherland. According to the article,
Franklin Tuttle was a well-known New York artist living at the time the
article was published. Quote
from article: “Mr. Tuttle spent six months in the study and preparation
of his picture and has thrown into the painting, apart from the accuracy
of the historic detail, a vast amount of excellent artist work.”
~~~~
PROVENANCE
On June 28, 2003, D.
Walker bought this painting at an estate sale from the grandson of
Helen Schmidt Davidson: Frank Davidson, Atty., Arizona, from the estate of
his mother Elizabeth Davidson, Edgewater Drive, Kent, OH. Helen Schmidt Davidson was mother of Fritz Davidson of Kent
(inventor). Frank Davidson
supplied these details and photo of children, which included his
grandmother.
Provenance of painting
of Helen Schmidt, b. 1888 – date of painting 1894 (age six?)
Helen Schmidt was daughter of George Schmidt,
W. 46th Street NYC. A small
business owner (hardware store?) who also
lived in Scarsdale and Rutherford
FRAME:
Frame on Tuttle Schmidt painting
Size 34” by 54” Gilded
gesso and wood molding.
FRAME:
Frame on Tuttle Schmidt painting
Size 34” by 54” Gilded
gesso and wood molding.

American Frame c. l880s from Eli Wiler website below
which seems somewhat similar:
O
Schmidt sisters.
We are not sure which child is Helen.

Second Tuttle painting? Girl with
Cat (same estate sale)
Girl with Cat
Second painting from Kent housesale
attributed by grandson to Tuttle
. (Seems same color red as George
Taylor Bishop painting by another earlier?
C Franklin Tuttle or same Franklin
Tuttle?

Research: Painting at Western Reserve Historical
Society, Cleveland, OH
A significant part of this was that
the owner met Tuttle at the Peacock Gallery
At the Waldorf Astoria which was after
__________________??? Review*
See - WHO WAS WHO IN AMERICAN ART, P. 3355. (Per NYHistorical Society
Reference)
TUTTLE, Charles F. (Engraver)
b. 1841, OH/ d. 1893.
Addresses: New Orleans, active
1869=93;
NYC 1878-79.
Studied with Carolus-Duran. Exhibited:
NAD, 1876-79; Paris Salon 1889.
Sources:
Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists, 384. American Art at the
Nineteenth-Century Paris, Salons, 399.
NOTE: -- New York
Historical Society letter from Eric Robison,
Reference Assistant. “The old Waldorf Hotel, and its Peacock Alley,
did not open until 1894. (The Hotel gained an important addition and became the
Waldorf-Astoria in 18977.) I
have been unable to find any indication of precisely what particular
exhibits were held there. “Eric Robinson, Reference Assistant.