biography of Robert BOGLE (1817-c.1860)

Birth place: Georgetown, SC

Addresses: Moved back and forth from Charleston, SC, to Baltimore, MD, and Wash., DC, area

Profession: Portrait and fancy painter

Exhibited: Washington Art Assoc. (possibly 1857, 1859; 1860)

Work: Gibbes Art Gallery/Carolina Art Assoc., Charleston, SC

Comments: Worked with his twin brother, James Bogle (see entry), in Salisbury, NC, 1838; Wilmington, NC, 1839; Charleston, SC, 1840-41; in Baltimore 1842; and again in Charleston in 1843. One of their combined efforts, a large portrait of Jane Shoolbred, survives (Gibbes Gallery). The brothers separated in 1843, James going to NYC and Robert to New Orleans (advertised there in January 1844). Robert worked as a portrait painter and also exhibited two large narrative paintings which he and his brother had executed in 1840. He married Adelaide Bailey, a wealthy heiress, in 1845. Their travels can be followed through the births of their children: Ada, in South Carolina c. 1846; Robert, born c. 1848 in Italy; and Harry, in Maryland, c. 1850. Bogle was living in Baltimore in 1859-60, but at the time of the 1860 Census he listed an address Georgetown (Wash., D.C.) with his wife, three sons, and two daughters; at that time he owned $5,000 in real estate and $10,000 in personal property. In November 1860 Bogle was in Charleston again, advertising as a portrait painter. Of his subsequent career nothing is known.

Sources: G&W; 8 Census (1860, indicated he was 40 years of age), D.C., I, 49; Rutledge, Artists in the Life of Charleston; Baltimore CD 1842, 1859-60; Delgado-WPA, cites Picayune, Jan. 7 and 9, 1844. More recently, see Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists, 44; McMahan, Artists of Washington, D.C.; Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 2: 35, 49-50