Louisa Davis Minot
(1787 - 1858)

Louisa Davis Minot was born 1787 in Portland, Cumberland, Massachusetts.

The life story of Louisa Davis Minot is one that is still shrouded in some form of mystery. For example, we still are unsure how Minot acquired her artistic training. What we do know is that the exquisite attention to detail in the Niagara Falls paintings suggest that they are not her first nor only works. Beyond the sheer artistic talent of the canvases themselves, Louisa Minot was impressive for taking on a subject that truly captured the realistic intensity of emotions of Niagara Falls.
Although the beginnings of the Hudson River School are usually traced back to the fall of 1825, when Durand, John Trumbull and others came across a Thomas Cole landscape in New York, signs indicate that there were others before Cole’s time. Seven years prior to Durand and company’s discovery, Louisa Davis Minot painted a pair of stunning Niagara Falls canvases. In fact, these two works of art were the only known paintings ascribed to her name.

http://staging.davesfiction.com/wam-featured-artist-week-louisa-davis-minot/
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Davis-26573

Niagara Falls
Oil on linen
1818
76,2 × 103,2 cm
New-York Historical Society
https://emuseum.nyhistory.org/objects/44071/niagara-falls