Who Painted the Lemuel and Hart Lester Pomeroy Portraits?

A few years back, Bill, Sandra, Jerry and I visited with Dottie H., descendant of Lemuel Pomeroy and his wife Hart Lester. At that time she had two beautiful portraits of Lemuel and his wife, painted in their later life, by an unknown artist. Dottie has since donated the portraits to the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA.

Recently, in transcribing many letters written by the Rufus Pomeroy and Isaac Pomeroy families, kindly lent to us by Susanna C., one of our researchers, Kate P., has been researching early letter writing, and the lives of women in 1800s Massachusetts. She came across a great blog that features early American Artists at
http://b-womeninamericanhistory19.blogspot.com/. In looking at these, we both saw some similarities in style of the Lemuel and Hart (Lester) Pomeroy portraits to an artist named Chester Harding. Now we are looking for a Chester Harding and portrait artist expert to look at these portraits and help us unravel this puzzle.


I'm attaching images of the portraits. If anyone recognizes the artist, or has any tips they can give us to help us identify the artist, please let me know, by contacting me via e-mail at roots@cxtec.com.