Clarissa Peters Russell

Clarissa Peters Russell (February 1, 1809 – August 12, 1854) was an American miniaturist. Her name is often given as Mrs. Moses B. Russell.

A native of Andover, Massachusetts, Russell was one of twelve children; her younger sister, Sara Peters Grozelier, also became a miniaturist. Their parents were Elizabeth Farrington Davis and John Peters; the Peters family had long been prominent in local affairs, and her father served as chairman of the town's board of selectmen. The details of Clarissa's early education are not known, but it has been suggested that she studied at the Franklin Academy, the first incorporated school in Massachusetts to admit women and the institution attended by her sister Emily from 1836 to 1838. Early in her professional life she is believed to have taught at the Blue Hill Academy in Blue Hill, Maine. She is known to have been in that town in 1831, and it is thought that she may have received some instruction in watercolor painting from Jonathan Fisher, a local polymath and graduate of Harvard University. By 1835 she was in Boston, painting miniatures and giving instruction in the art as well. in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1839;

The Russells were active in Boston from around 1842 to 1854, living on School Street and exhibiting work at the Boston Athenaeum; and a painting of the three Starbird children of Charlestown, Massachusetts; this last is the only one of the three whose attribution to her is secure. Another miniature of a child is in the Cincinnati Art Museum. An album of watercolors of flowers and plants, likely her earliest surviving work, is currently owned by the North Andover Historical Society.