Stone studied painting with the portrait and miniature painter Nathaniel Jocelyn in New Haven during the late 1840s. Following a fire which destroyed Jocelyn's studio, Stone went to New York in 1851 to try his fortune as a portrait artist and his success at this pursuit enabled him to live and work there for the rest of his life. He became quite popular with the wealthy, society families and traveled throughout the northeast, executing portraits of them. Among his better known subjects were James Gordon Bennett (unlocated), Samuel F. B. Morse (Yale University Art Gallery), and William Wilson Corcoran (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Stone died unexpectedly at Newport where he spent many summers.
Stone exhibited at the National Academy in almost every year from 1854 to 1875. Besides his many portraits, he occassinally executed figure works and two of these are in the Academy's collection today. A third work, probably Stone's diploma work, was listed in the 1911 inventory of the Academy's collection under the title A Lady--Cabinet Portrait (no. 290). It was accepted into the collection by the Council on March 12, 1860, but has since been lost.
