Historical Object of the Week: Ellen Tucker Portrait

Welcome to Concord Patch’s newest feature, Object of the Week. Each week we will present an artifact from the collection that speaks to Concord’s storied history. We welcome comments, memories and suggestions for future items.

Women’s History Month continues with a portrait of Ellen Louisa Tucker.

Tucker (1811-1831) was just 16 when she met Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1827 in Concord, New Hampshire.  In a letter to his brother in 1829, the 26-year-old Emerson described Tucker as “simple but very elegant in her manners....she is beautiful, and finally I love her.” Tragically, just 17 months after Ellen and Waldo were married, she died of tuberculosis. 

The Concord Museum has two miniature portraits of Ellen Tucker in its collection. The miniature watercolor on ivory portrait shown here is mounted as a brooch and can also be worn on a chain as a locket. Of the portrait, made in the spring of 1829 before their September 30th wedding, her husband wrote, “‘tis a very imperfect copy of her face....Still ‘tis a copy....” 

The brooch, along with the red cashmere shawl she is wearing in the painting, passed down through the family of Ellen’s sister—Pauline Tucker Nash—to her great-nephew who donated it to the Concord Museum in 1961. 

To learn more about Ellen Louisa Tucker, read Edith W. Gregg's One First Love: The Letters of Ellen Louisa Tucker to Ralph Waldo Emerson.