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Captain Aaron Bird
1804
Benjamin Greenleaf (1769-1821)
USA: Massachusetts or Maine
Oil on pine board
board: 16"h x 12-1/2"w x 1/2"d; frame: 17-1/2"h x 13-7/8"w x 1"d
Museum Purchase
98.064.1

Bust-length portrait of Captain Aaron Bird (1756-1822); oil portrait on pine board of a man wearing a dark coat with high standing white collar and white stock; on the stock is a stick pin decorated with the Masonic square and compasses; verso is signed and inscribed in Greenleaf's hand: "Capt. Aaron Bird, Agd. 48 / Painted by Benjn. Greenleaf 1804."; in another hand: "Present / to Eunlee Bird / 1818 / Johanna."


Benjamin Greenleaf painted Aaron Bird (1756–1822) in 1804. For his portrait Bird chose to wear, as his only ornament, a gold pin bearing easily recognized symbols of Freemasonry, a square and compasses. A charter member of Cumberland Lodge No. 12 in New Gloucester, Maine, Bird became a Mason before 1803, when members of the new lodge first met. In 1818 he helped establish Tranquil Lodge No. 29 in his hometown of Minot, Maine. For further information, see blog posts, May 28, 2020, https://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/2020/05/well-matched-masonic-portraits-of-couples.html; and October 28, 2014 http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/2014/10/opening-november-22-2014-every-variety-of-painting-for-lodges-decorated-furniture-paintings-and-ritu.html