Deborah Goldsmith

Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Day and Their Daughter Cornelia, watercolor, c. 1823–1824, in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum

Deborah Goldsmith (August 14, 1808 – March 16, 1836) She was the daughter of Richard and Ruth Miner Goldsmith, former residents of Guilford, Connecticut, who moved to Brookfield, New York, sometime between 1805 and 1808. Little is known of her life, or of her motivations for becoming an artist, although it is suspected that she was forced into the profession in order to support her parents. Goldsmith has been described as a "self-taught itinerant limner". No advertisements survive documenting her travels; however, her own records indicate that she was active in the New York communities of Brookfield, North Brookfield, Hamilton, Lebanon, Cooperstown, Hartwick, Toddsville, and Hubbardsville between 1826 and 1832. Most of her portraits were created between 1828 and 1832.

A book on the couple's family history, Ancestral charts of George Addison Throop, Deborah Goldsmith, was published in 1934.

Works Only a handful of works by Goldsmith have been identified, most of them watercolors either on paper or on ivory, She produced numerous portraits as well as commonplace books, the latter filled with decorative images, illustrated copies of prints, and a mourning picture in addition to poetry and other writings. She also left behind her worktable and a tin paint box. while her portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Day and their daughter Cornelia, dated c. 1823–1824, is in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum. Her two commonplace books descended in the family, but have been committed to microfilm by the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.