John Amory Codman (1824-1886)
Artist, of Boston, Massachusetts
He was best known as a painter of portraits, landscapes, harbors, beaches, and marine scenes. He exhibited with the Apollo Association in 1839; the American Art-Union in 1849; the Boston Athenaeum in 1856; and he displayed two oil paintings, Marblehead Neck and Landscape, at the Boston Art Club in 1873. His work is represented in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In his will, he left a substantial amount of money to his mistress, the widow Mrs. Eliza Ann Hales Kimball (aka Violet Kimball), but the bequest was challenged by his wife and daughter. A settlement was eventually agreed upon whereby Mrs. Kimball received $15,000 rather than the $40,000 and additional considerations originally specified in Codman's will. His only surviving child, Martha Codman Karolik, was an art collector and a major benefactor of the arts.
