Reson B. CRAFFT
1809–1877, USA

Reson B. Crafft was an accomplished American portrait artist. He was a portrait and miniature painter active in Indiana, Ohio, Iowa and Kentucky between 1836 and 1853. According to the 1850 census, he was born in Ohio about 1809-1810. He is listed in census in Springfield, Clark County, Ohio, 1860 in Oldham County, Kentucky, and 1870 in Louisville, Kentucky. He worked in Fort Wayne. Indiana, from 1836 to 1844; then was in Kentucky and Ohio for a few years, a son having been born in Ohio about 1844 and some portraits dated 1845 having been traced to the Louisville and Lexington areas. Around 1847 he was in Iowa, where a second son was born. His third child, a daughter, was born in Ohio in 1849, and the entire family was living in Springfield (Clark) in July 1850. Crafft was still painting portraits in Springfield in 1852, and signed, dated portraits establish the he was in Jefferson County, Kentucky in 1853, and even later in Pennsylvania. Crafft died in 1877. There are four portraits by Crafft listed in the Catalog of American Portraits, (CAP) which is an inventory of historically significant American portraits in public and private collections. A Masonic apron he painted about 1850 is in the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass. Portraits of Elizabeth Pryor Foree Jessee, Dr. John Foree Jessee, Col. George McCracken Jessee and of the three Jessee children Virgil, William and John are in the Filson Historical Society in Louisville. One of his more famous works is the portrait of the Miami Indian Chief LaFontaine, and also "The Merchant", a portrait of a wealthy shipping merchant dispayed in Williamsburg, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center. He was still painting in the 1870's.

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