The Many Faces of Thomas H. Buckler

Thomas Hepburn Buckler was a renaissance man in the mid-1860's. Although he was a physician, his biography in the Medical Annals of Maryland (1799-1899) doesn't have the requisite date of achieving membership at the Faculty. 

Possibly, this is because he was living abroad for a significant amount of time, especially the years of the Civil War. Dr. Buckler was the second husband of Eliza "Didy" Ridgely White (1828-1894), a member of the Ridgely family who owned more than 10,000 acres of land just north of Baltimore, as well as the spectacular Hampton Mansion. 

Dr. Buckler was said to be a man of "striking personal appearance and much sought after on account of his brilliant conversational powers and wit." He and Didy had one son, William Hepburn Buckler, who is remembered as a scholar, lawyer and diplomat. He was born while the Bucklers lived in Paris. 

Over the weekend, I was visiting old churches in Baltimore County with a friend who is researching them and literally stumbled across this tomb-stone. Both father and son are buried at the cemetery at the historic St. Thomas Church in Garrison, Maryland.

Anyway... for all of the time he spent away from Baltimore, and for the fact that he probably wasn't actually a member of the Faculty, we have at least three depictions of him - two oil portraits and one marble bust. 

The most well-known portrait is Julius LeBlanc Stewart's portrait of Buckler. You can read all about the subject and the artist here. This portrait was painted when Buckler lived in Paris between 1866-1890. 

The second portrait is by Louis Dieterich, a Baltimore-based painter. This was probably painted upon Buckler's return to Baltimore, after 1890.

The marble bust is by William Henry Rinehart, a noted sculptor from Baltimore who lived in Rome during the 1870's. The bust is signed and dated 1868, which is handy. 

Additionally, there is a notation in the 1958 catalogue of Rinehart's works of the provenance of this bust, which traces it from TH Buckler to his son, to the Faculty. 

So, I guess my next bit of sleuthing is to search the old medical journals and see when and why we acquired these pieces.