THE EARLY LIFE AND WORK OF EZRA AMES by Theodore Bolton and Irwin F. Cortelyou INTRODUCTION EZRA AMES of Albany, prominent in his day as a portrait painter, is still remembered because his portraits have a local, a State and, sometimes, a national interest as records. Although he was born at Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1768, he settled at Albany as early as 1793, and lived there until his death in 1836. Except for a few early portraits, none of the pictures he painted before he moved to Albany has been identified, so that practically all his known portraits are of residents of New York State. Since any portraits painted from life may be regarded either as personal records or as historical documents, and since Ames recorded the likenesses of nearly four hundred of his contemporaries, his portraits, many of which are still extant, constitute important documentary sources for the history of New York State during the early Republican Era. Nevertheless, despite the preponderance of interest in his work because of its historical significance, one should not overlook its solid artistic merits. The fact that some of his portraits have been confused with the work of Gilbert Stuart, John Wesley Jarvis, John Vanderlyn, and Henry Inman gives an idea of their relative artistic quality. A number of his portraits, such as those of JuUus Ames, Harmanus Bleecker, Francis Bloodgood, George Clinton (the version at The New-York Historical Society), General Thomas Humphrey Cushing, Mrs. Cushing, Mrs. Ebenezer Foot, Henry Jones, James Kent (of which there are two versions), William Tully, Henry Newman, John Keyes Paige, Mrs. John Keyes Paige, Marcus Tullius Reynolds, Ambrose Spencer, Theodore Strong, Matthias B. Tallmadge, Robert Temple, Absalom Town-