Winthrop Chandler was a gilder, carver, illustrator and painter of portraits and landscapes.

He was born April 6, 1747 in Connecticut, the youngest of 10 children. He served as an apprenticeship to a portrait painter in Boston. Then he painted portraits of his relatives and town notables, as well as landscapes of the local gentry.

He was a highly gifted folk painter. Chandler didn’t fight in the Revolutionary War, though many of his family members did on both sides. Chandler himself painted for both patriots and Loyalists.

Chandler married Mary Gleason and the couple moved to Worcester, Mass., in 1785, perhaps in search of work. He is known to have painted houses and regilded the weathervane on the courthouse.

Source: Winthrop Chandler
Copyright © 2014 - 2020 New England Historical Society