Hannah Roberts and Lewis Tebbets

Clasping a book between them, Hannah Roberts and her betrothed husband, Lewis Tebbets (or Tibbetts), face each other in John H. Davis’s double portrait commemorating their engagement. The finely dressed paired figures are presented in profile against a blank white background as they stand together on a boldly decorated floor patterned with three medallions. Fixing each other with a steady gaze, the two are also linked by the volume, perhaps a prayer book indicating the common religious faith that will cement their union. In his right hand, Tebbets holds a bunch of flowers, a gift for his bride; she, meanwhile, clutches a handkerchief, possibly a reference to her domestic skills.

Davis painted this portrait in anticipation of the couple’s wedding, planned some two months in the future. Historical records indicate, however, that they were married less than three weeks later, in Berwick, Maine, close to the center of Davis’s geographical range as an itinerant portraitist. Both Hannah and Lewis were then about twenty-three years old, and probably were related through Hannah’s mother, Alice Tibbetts. Lewis eventually was ordained and lived to be seventy-five. He and his wife appear to have spent their entire lives in Berwick, where they are buried along with their two sons, George and Lewis Jr.

 Davis's portrait of Hannah Roberts and Lewis Tebbets is typical of his works in its profile view of the figures, delicate details, decorative rendering of the floor, and elaborate calligraphic inscription. He made numerous double portraits of serenely composed husbands and wives dressed in their best, but typically they are separated by a table bearing a Bible, a bowl of fruit, or other props, as in Samuel G. and Mary Vickery (TF 1999.36) also in the Terra Foundation's collection. In this engagement portrait, the artist eliminated such devices as if to emphasize the romantic love uniting the affianced pair. This work is also unusual in positioning the male figure on the right: a left-handed painter, Davis almost invariably placed the husband on the left. He may have reversed the formula here to stress the male's dominance as each partner extends the left hand—the one that will receive the wedding band—toward the other.

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