Lilly Martin Spencer

Black-and-white studio portrait of a light-skinned older woman white hair pulled back. She sits in a chair next to an easel and holds a palatte and brushes. She wears a high-neck, long-sleeve, dark-color long dress.

Herve Homer, Portrait of Lilly Martin Spencer, ca. 1900; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

1822 to 1902

In 1830, the eight-year-old Angélique Marie Martin, called Lilly, arrived in the U.S. from her native England. Her parents, a politically progressive couple of French descent, raised their daughter in the small town of Marietta, Ohio.

When her artistic abilities and ambitions outstripped the cultural resources available there, her father took her to Cincinnati, where she studied with the portrait painter John Insco Williams.

At 22, Lilly Martin married Benjamin Rush Spencer. They made their home first in New York City, then in Newark, New Jersey, and then moved into a large house in Highland, New York, across the Hudson River from Poughkeepsie. The couple had 13 children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.

Lilly was the principal breadwinner, while Benjamin managed their growing household. In the late 1840s and 1850s, the artist’s work became popular in Europe and America.

Spencer exhibited her paintings at the National Academy of Design and was represented at the Women’s Pavilion of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. She also produced work for a number of prominent patrons. However, much of Spencer’s fame resulted from the widespread sale of inexpensive engraved copies of her oil paintings.

Artist Details

  • Name

    Lilly Martin Spencer

  • Birth

    Exeter, England, 1822

  • Death

    New York City, 1902

  • Phonetic Spelling

    LIH-lee MAHR-tihn SPEHN-serr

Works by Lilly Martin Spencer

  • Still Life with Watermelon, Pears, and Grapes

    Best known for her paintings of family and domestic life in mid-19th century America, Lilly Martin Spencer was also a talented painter of still lifes. Indeed, paintings like The Artist and Her Family at a Fourth of July Picnic contain sensitively rendered still-life elements.

    Still Life with Watermelon, Pears, and Grapes was an appropriate subject for the artist on several levels. The...

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    A juicy, cracked slice of watermelon, four glossy yellow pears, a fuzzy peach, and clusters of black and purple grapes sit on a medium-gray ledge against a dark background. Rendered with precise details and accurate textures, the fruit tempts viewers with its realism.

    Lilly Martin Spencer, Still Life with Watermelon, Pears and Grapes, ca. 1859; Oil on canvas, 13 1/8 x 17 1/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

  • The Artist and Her Family at a Fourth of July Picnic

    Lilly Martin Spencer’s The Artist and Her Family at a Fourth of July Picnic depicts an idyllic genre scene in which well-dressed, middle-class Americans celebrate their country’s independence by eating, drinking, and entertaining one another.

    The painter’s husband, Benjamin, sprawls on the ground at the center of the scene, his weight apparently too much for the tree swing. Though most of the...

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    A chubby, light-skinned man in a white suit sprawls on the ground atop a wooden swing seat and frayed rope. A mirthful group of men, women, and children surround him. In the right foreground, a dark-skinned servant watching these antics splashes liquid on a surly older woman.

    Lilly Martin Spencer, The Artist and Her Family at a Fourth of July Picnic, ca. 1864; Oil on canvas, 49 1/2 x 63 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Given in memory of Muriel Gucker Hahn by her loving husband, William Frederick Hahn, Jr. Conservation funds generously provided by the Florida State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts; Photo by Lee Stalsworth