Portrait of Mrs. Sarah Lyon(s) at the age of 101 Years, John Constable, 1804. Gift of Mr. Ben Selling.
When I first met my son-in-law’s father, George, we instantly bonded over our shared interest in family history. One of George’s most interesting ancestors is Sarah Lyon, who lived from 1703 to 1807. A notable fact about Lyon is that she was painted by the great English Romantic painter John Constable when she was over 100 years old. However, George didn’t know where the painting now was. Intrigued by the story, I asked a friend in England to contact the National Gallery in London and see if they had any information. The next day, my friend called me back and told me that the painting was actually right here in Los Angeles, at the Skirball Cultural Center, just a short distance from where I lived. The timing was fortuitous because the location of the painting had only recently been discovered. Immediately, I called the Skirball and asked if they could send me a picture of the painting. Shortly thereafter I received a phone call from a docent, David Welsh, who told me he had been instrumental in gathering information about Lyon. David said he would be happy to meet me for lunch and give me a copy of his notes.
I was excited to visit the Museum, see the painting, and discuss genealogy with David Welsh. And I was not disappointed—it was a marvelous experience. Here is what I have learned about Sarah Lyon and her family:
It had long been generally accepted that Lyon was born in Holland, but a letter written to the editor of the Monthly Magazine in 1808 recently came to light that contradicts this fact. The letter, signed simply “J.A.,” purported to offer information “almost verbatim” from Sarah Lyon’s son, Isaac. The account stated that Lyon was born in “a village in Germany called Ashich” and that she went “to service” in Amsterdam, where she married and gave birth to her son. Lyon was widowed at a young age, and at about the age of thirty she and Isaac moved to a town called Ipswich in England, where she died in 1807. She is buried in a small cemetery there.
Sarah Lyon is the progenitor of a huge family spread out all over the world. There are a number of well-known people in this family tree, including the Nobel Prize–winning French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson, American authors Geoffrey and Tobias Wolff, British advice columnist Marjorie Proops, and British actor Warren Mitchell. Also included are David Misell, who invented the flashlight; Al Levy, a pioneering Los Angeles restaurateur; and theater producer Eric Krebs.
Lyon’s portrait was one of about 100 portraits that the later-to-be-celebrated landscape painter, Constable, painted as a young man—at the behest of his parents, who hoped he would become a fashionable portrait painter. The exact provenance of Constable’s portrait of Lyon is uncertain. It was restored by Lyon’s great-grandson Mier Ansell in 1857 and eventually came into the possession of her great-great-granddaughter Martha Hickman. Hickman died around 1921, after which the painting came into the possession of noted art collector Israel Solomons. Hebrew Union College (HUC) acquired Solomons’s collection around 1922, but the portrait is listed as having been donated by an Oregon-based art collector named Ben Selling. Either Selling acquired the portrait and then donated it to HUC, or he donated the funds that HUC used to purchase the portrait. There also exists a Constable painting of Sarah Lyon’s son, Rev. Isaac Titterman. This portrait now resides with family members in Australia.
My path to the Skirball may have not been a straight one, but it is now a very familiar one … for the past 5 years—since that lunch with David—I have been visiting the Skirball on a weekly basis as a volunteer! This is why I love genealogy: it not only connects us to the past, but also to those around us in the present.
Judy Wolkovitch has been a volunteer at the Skirball for five years. Born in England, she immigrated to the U.S. in 1966 where she married another Brit, Julian Wolkovitch, and they had two daughters. She is very involved in the family genealogy which has not only provided a fascinating history but has connected her with living relatives in Los Angeles whom she never knew existed.