The Painter's Chair (37 page)
Read The Painter's Chair Online
Authors: Hugh Howard
8
. William Sullivan,
Familiar Letters on Public Characters, and Public Events, from the Peace of 1783, to the Peace of 1815
(1834), pp. 75–76.
9
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 372.
10
. Ibid., p. 374.
11
. Custis,
Recollections
(1860), p. 522.
12
. Dunlap,
History
(1834), vol. 1, pp. 197–98.
13
. Gilbert Stuart, as quoted in Isaac Weld Jr.,
Travels through the States of North America, and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada during the Years 1795, 1796, and
1797
(1807), vol. 1, pp. 1054–56.
14
. Custis,
Recollections
(1860), p. 521.
15
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 371.
16
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 373.
17
. William T. Oedel, “John Vanderlyn: French Neoclassicism and the Search for An American Style,” cited in Rebora and Miles,
Gilbert Stuart
(2004), p. 147.
18
. Abigail Adams to John Adams, December 30, 1804.
19
. John Caspar Lavater as quoted in Mary Lynn Johnson, “Lavater Contemplating a Bust of Chatham,” in
Physiognomy in Profile: Lavater’s Impact on European Culture
, Melissa Percival and Graeme Tytler, eds. (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005), p. 60.
20
. John Caspar Lavater,
Essays on Physiognomy, designed to promote the Knowledge and Love of Mankind
, vol. III (1798), p. 435.
21
. Rembrandt Peale, letter of 1834, quoted in Whitley,
Gilbert Stuart
(1932), p. 95.
22
. Eliza Willing Powel to George Washington, November 17, 1792.
23
. George Washington to the marquise de Lafayette, March 16, 1793.
24
. Abigail Adams to Mary Cranch, May 28, 1789.
25
. Martha Washington to Fanny Bassett Washington, October 23, 1789.
26
. Martha Washington to Mercy Otis Warren, December 26, 1789.
27
. Dunlap,
History
(1834), vol. I, pp. 220–21.
28
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 372.
29
. Ibid., p. 370.
30
. George Washington to John Greenwood, January 20, 1797.
31
. As reported by Tobias Lear, in Stephen Decatur,
Private Affairs of George Washington: From the Records and Accounts of Tobias Lear, Esquire, his Secretary
(1933), p. 178.
32
. Henrietta Liston, “A Diplomat’s Wife in Philadelphia” (1954), p. 606.
33
. Jouett,
Notebook
(1816), p. 83.
34
. Gilbert Stuart, as recorded in Jouett,
Notebook
(1816), p. 81.
35
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 371.
36
. Custis,
Recollections
(1860), pp. 413–14.
37
. George Washington to Gilbert Stuart, April 11, 1796.
38
. Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, April 11, 1798.
39
. George Washington,
Diaries,
May 21, 1787.
40
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 369.
41
. Ibid., p. 369.
42
. Jouett,
Notebook
(1816), p. 84.
43
. Quoted in Whitley,
Gilbert Stuart
(1932), p. 99.
44
. Lord Lansdowne to Anne Willing Bingham, March 5, 1797, in Whitley,
Gilbert Stuart
(1932), p. 99.
45
. Liston, “Diplomat’s Wife” (1954), p. 606.
46
.
American Daily Advertiser,
September 19, 1796.
47
. George Washington, “Farewell Address,” 1796.
48
. Whitley,
Gilbert Stuart
(1932), pp. 99–100.
49
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 370.
50
. Dunlap,
History
(1834), vol. I, p. 218.
51
. From
Annals of Philadelphia
(1830) by John Watson, quoted in Whitley,
Gilbert Stuart
(1932), p. 112.
52
. Jenkins,
Washington in Germantown
, p. 302.
53
. Washington,
Diaries
, January 7, 1797.
54
. Jouett,
Notebook
(1816), p. 83.
55
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 370; and Dunlap,
History
(1834), vol. I, pp. 198–99.
56
. Dunlap,
History
(1834), vol. I., pp. 204–5.
57
. Thomas Pym Cope,
Philadelphia Merchant: The Diary of Thomas P. Cope, 1800–1851
(1978), p. 124.
58
. Dorinda Evans,
The Genius of Gilbert Stuart
(1999), p. 85.
59
. Jenkins,
Washington in Germantown
, p. 304.
60
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 373.
61
. Dunlap,
History
(1834), vol. I, p. 199.
62
. John Neal,
Observations on American Art
(1823), p. 2.
63
. Stuart, “The Stuart Portraits of Washington” (1876), p. 369, and “Anecdotes of Stuart” (1877), p. 377.
CHAPTER 10:
Rembrandt’s Washington
1
. Rembrandt Peale, “Reminiscences. The Painter’s Eyes” (1856), pp. 163–64.
2
.
Dunlap and Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser,
April 24, 1794.
3
. “Rembrandt Peale’s Lecture on Washington and His Portraits” (1858), reprinted in Gustavus A. Eisen,
Portraits of Washington
(1932), vol. I, p. 300.
4
. Peale, “Lecture” (1858), p. 300.
5
. C. Edwards Lester
, The Artists of America
(1846), p. 204.
6
. Lester
, The Artists
(1846), p. 204.
7
. Rembrandt Peale, “Reminiscences. Charles Willson Peale. A Sketch by His Son” (1855), p. 82.
8
. Peale, “Lecture” (1858), p. 308.
9
. Peale, “Lecture” (1858), variant ms. at Haverford College, p. 16.
10
. Dunlap,
History
(1834), vol. I, p. 206. Stuart was never afraid to amplify an anecdote; the identity of a fifth Peale, if any, is unknown.
11
. Peale, “Lecture” (1858), Mount Vernon variant.
12
. Rembrandt Peale, “Lecture” (1858), p. 311.
13
.
Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser
, October 25, 1796.
14
. Charles Willson Peale to John Isaac Hawkins, July 3, 1808.
15
. Rembrandt Peale to Charles Willson Peale, September 8, 1808.
16
. Poulet,
Houdon
(2003), p 341.
17
. Ibid., p.20, fn. 29.
18
. Ibid., p 20, fn. 28.
19
. Raoul Rochette, quoted in Hart and Biddle,
Memoirs
(1911), p. 218.
20
. Rembrandt Peale writing to the Committee on the Portrait of Washington, March 16, 1824. Library Company of Philadelphia.
21
. Rembrandt Peale in his pamphlet
Portrait of Washington
, quoted in Hevner,
Rembrandt Peale
(1985), p. 66.
22
. Rembrandt Peale, “Lecture,” Mount Vernon variant.
23
. Ibid.
24
. Peale, “Lecture” (1858), p. 313.
25
. Ibid., p. 313.
26
. Lester
, The Artists
(1846), p. 211.
27
. Peale, “Lecture” (1858), Mount Vernon variant.
28
. Rembrandt Peale to Rubens Peale, July 12, 1855; in Hevner, “Rembrandt Peale’s Life in Art” (1986), p. 88.
EPILOGUE:
Remembering the Founding Father
1
. George Washington to Samuel Stanhope Smith, May 24, 1797.
2
. George Washington to David Stuart, January 27, 1799.
3
. “Jack” Washington had also been Mount Vernon’s farm manager during some of Washington’s military absences, so an understanding
may have been reached earlier about the eventual bequest of the plantation.
4
. Art historians have long since rejected his attributions.
5
. James Monroe to Lafayette, February 24, 1824.
6
. Jane Bacon MacIntire,
Lafayette, The Guest of the Nation.
Privately published, 1967, pp. 11–12.
7
. Ibid., p. 45.
8
. Peale
, Autobiography,
p. 482.
9
. MacIntire, p. 92.
10
. Some of the details in this retelling of Lafayette’s visit to Arlington House on October 15, 1824, have been drawn from
La Fayette’s visit to Arlington House,
an account of the evening by an unknown writer. The original manuscript is in the archives at Tudor Place Historic House and
Garden, Washington, D.C. Although the narrative reads very much as if it were composed at the time, the manuscript is undated.
11
. Eleanor Parke Custis,
George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly: The Letters of Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1794–1851
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), p. 39.
12
. George Washington to Lafayette, February 7, 1788.
13
. Robert D. Ward,
An Account of General La Fayette’s visit to Virginia, in the years 1824–’25
(1881), pp. 26–27.
14
. Auguste Levasseur,
Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825
, vol. 1 (1829), p. 181.
15
. Custis,
Recollections
(1860), p. 592.
16
. Lafayette to George Washington, March 17, 1790.
17
. Benson J. Lossing, “Preface” to Custis,
Recollections
(1860), p. 120.
18
. Mrs. R. E. Lee, quoted in William Buckner McGroarty, “A Letter and a Portrait from Arlington House,”
The William and Mary Quarterly
, second series, vol. 22, no. 1 (January 1942), p. 51.
19
. William Thornton to William Winstanley, January 4, 1800.
20
. Thomas Pym Cope,
Diary
, June 10, 1802.
21
. For a more detailed discussion, see Scott E. Casper, “First First Family: Seventy Years with Edward Savage’s
The Washington Family
,”
Imprint
, vol. XXIV, no. 2 (autumn 1999), pp. 2–15.
22
. I owe this observation to Scott Casper’s perceptive “First First Family” (1999).
23
. John Trumbull to Jonathan Trumbull, May 24, 1786.
24
. Leslie,
Autobiographical Recollections
(1860), p. 38.
25
. Eliza Willing Powel to George Washington, November 17, 1792.
I
HAVE SOUGHT whenever possible to rely on primary sources. Thus, the papers of Washington, Charles Willson Peale, John Trum-bull,
and others shaped this book’s narrative and give it much of its texture. In the same way, without John Smibert’s
Notebook
, Jane Stuart’s recollections of her father, G. W. P. Custis’s memoir of the Chief, and William Dunlap’s
History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States
, this book might not have been possible.
The task has involved turning the pages of countless other books, too, since the literature concerning Washington is oceanic.
It is possible to reach into time’s depths and find biographies written in the revolutionary era and in every generation since;
that I’ve done, too, though the points of view to be found are as wide as the horizon.
I learned from a range of scholars, too. Anyone who investigates the painters finds that the good people in each category
seem to come in pairs: Charles Coleman Sellers and Lillian B. Miller wrote the basic books on Peale; in the same way, Henry
Wilder Foote and Richard H. Saunders have written of John Smibert; Theodore Sizer and Irma B. Jaffe of John Trumbull; Dorinda
Evans and Carrie Rebora Barratt of Gilbert Stuart; and John Hill Morgan and Ellen G. Miles more generally on portraits of
Washington. In studying Washington there is the key pairing of Douglas Southall Freeman and James Thomas Flexner.
A fuller list of the sources essential to this book is as follows:
Adams, John.
The Works of John Adams.
Vol. I–III. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850–56.
_______.
Papers of John Adams.
13 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977–2006.
Alberts, Robert C.
Benjamin West: A Biography.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1978.
Aldridge, Alfred Owen.
Benjamin Franklin: Philosopher and Man.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1965.
Amory, Martha Babcock.
The Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1882.
Arnason, H. H[arvard].
Sculpture by Houdon: A Loan Exhibition.
Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 1964.
_______.
The Sculptures of Houdon.
London: Phaidon, 1975.
Baker, William S.
Character Portraits of Washington.
Philadelphia: R. M. Lindsay, 1887.
Barratt, Carrie Rebora, and Ellen G. Miles.
Gilbert Stuart.
New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press, 2004.
Braider, Donald.
Five Early American Painters.
New York: Meredith Press, 1969.
Brooks, Van Wyck.
The Dream of Arcadia.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1958.
Bryan, Helen.
Martha Washington, First Lady of Liberty.
New York: John Wiley &Sons, 2002.
Bullock, Helen Duprey.
My Head and My Heart: A Little History of Thomas Jefferson and Maria Cosway.
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1945.
Cadou, Carol Borchert.
The George Washington Collection: Fine and Decorative Arts at Mount Vernon.
Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2006.
Carroll, Frances Laverne, and Mary Meachem.
The Library at Mount Vernon.
Pittsburgh, PA: Beta Phi Mu Chapbook, 1977.
Casper, Scott E. “First First Family: Seventy Years with Edward Savage’s
The Washington Family
.”
Imprint
, vol. XXIV, no. 2 (1999), pp. 2–15.
Chinard, Gilbert.
Houdon in America: A Collection of Documents in the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1930.
Christies, Manson & Woods International, Inc.
Property from the Collection of Mrs. J. Insley Blair
. New York: Christie’s, 2006.
Cooper, Helen A., ed.
John Trumbull: The Hand and Spirit of a Painter.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982.
Cope, Thomas Pym.
Philadelphia Merchant: The Diary of Thomas P. Cope, 1800–1851
, Eliza Cope Harrison, ed. South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1978, p. 124.
Cox, Katherine Cabell.
Some Facts Regarding the Houdon Statue of George Washington in the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia.
Richmond, VA: Press of the Dietz Printing Co., 1925.
Craven, Wayne.
Colonial American Portraiture.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
_______.
Sculpture in America.
Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1984.
Crowson, E. T. “George Washington Parke Custis: The Child of Mount Vernon,” in
Virginia Cavalcade
, vol. XXII, no. 3 (winter 1973), pp. 36–47.
Custis, George Washington Parke.
Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington.
New York: Derby & Jackson, 1860.
_______. “Pocahontas: or, The Settlers of Virginia, A National Drama.” Reprinted in
Representative American Plays
, Arthur Hobson Quinn, ed. New York: Century Co., 1917.
Dalzell, Robert F., Jr., and Lee Baldwin Dalzell.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Decatur, Stephen.
Private Affairs of George Washington: From the Rec ords and Accounts of Tobias Lear, Esquire, His Secretary.
Boston: Riverside Press, 1933.
Dickson, Harold E.
John Wesley Jarvis, American Painter, 1780–1840.
New York: New-York Historical Society, 1949.
Dresser, Louisa. “Edward Savage, 1761–1817.”
Art in America,
vol. 40, no. 4 (1952), pp. 155–212.
Dunlap, William.
Diary, 1766–1823
. 3 vols. New York: New-York Historical Society, 1930.
_______.
History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States.
2 vols. New York: George P. Scott and Co., 1834.
Einstein, Lewis.
Divided Loyalties: Americans in England during the War of Independence.
New York: Russell & Russell, 1933, reprinted 1970.
Eisen, Gustavus A.
Portraits of Washington
. 3 vols. New York: Robert Hamilton &Associates, 1932.
Ellis, Joseph J.
After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Cultures.
New York: W. W. Norton & Co. 1979.
_______.
His Excellency, George Washington.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
Erffa, Helmut von, and Allen Staley.
The Paintings of Benjamin West
. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.
Evans, Dorinda.
Benjamin West and His American Students.
Washington, DC: National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian Institution Press, 1980.
_______
. The Genius of Gilbert Stuart.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
_______. “Gilbert Stuart and Manic Depression: Redefining His Artistic Range.”
American Art,
vol. XVIII, no. 1 (2004), pp. 10–31.
Fabian, Monroe H.
Mr. Sully, Portrait Painter: The Works of Thomas Sully (1783– 1872).
Washington, DC: National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983.
Feld, Stuart P. “In the Latest London Manner.”
Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin,
vol. XXI, no. 9 (May 1963), pp. 296–309.
Fielding, Mantle.
Gilbert Stuart’s Portraits of George Washington.
Philadelphia, 1923.
Flagg, Jared B.
The Life and Letters of Washington Allston.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892, 1969.
Flexner, James Thomas.
America’s Old Masters: First Artists of the New World.
New York: Viking Press, 1939.
_______.
George Washington: The Forge of Experience, 1732–1775
. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1965.
_______.
George Washington in the American Revolution, 1775–1783
. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1968.
_______
. George Washington and the New Nation, 1783–1793
. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1970.
_______.
George Washington: Anguish and Farewell, 1793–1799.
Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972.
_______.
Gilbert Stuart: A Great Life in Brief.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.
_______.
John Singleton Copley.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1948.
Ford, Paul Leicester.
The True George Washington.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1896.
Foote, Henry Wilder.
John Smibert, Painter
. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.
_______. “Mr. Smibert Shows His Pictures, March 1730.”
New England Quarterly
, vol. VIII, no. 1 (March 1935), pp. 14–28.
Franklin, Benjamin.
Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiographical Writings.
Carl Van Doren, ed. New York: Viking Press, 1945.
Freeman, Douglas Southall.
George Washington: A Biography
, 7 vol. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948–1957.
_______.
R. E. Lee: A Biography.
4 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934–35.
Galt, John.
The Life, Studies and Works of Benjamin West, Esq.
2 vols. London: Cadell and Davies, 1816–1820.
Gardner, Albert Ten Eyck, and Stuart P. Feld.
American Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Vol. I. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1965.
Gottesman, R. E. “New York’s First Major Art Show.”
New-York Historical Society Quarterly
, vol. 53 (July 1959), pp. 288–305.
Hagen, Oskar.
The Birth of the American Tradition in Art.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940.
Hallen, John S. “The Eighteenth-Century American Townscape and the Face of Colonialism.”
Smithsonian Studies in American Art
, vol. IV, no. 3/4 (summer-autumn, 1990), pp. 144–162.
_______. “Houdon’s
Washington
in Richmond: Some New Observations.”
American Art Journal
, vol. X, no. 2 (November 1978), pp. 72–80.
Halsey, R. T. H. “Early Engravings in Colonial Houses.”
Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin
, vol. XIX, no. 8 (August 1924), pp. 196–202.
_______. “Prints Washington Lived With at Mount Vernon.”
Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin
, vol. XXX, no. 3 (March 1935), pp. 63–65.
Harley, R. D.
Artists’ Pigments, c.1600–1835.
London: Archetype Publications, 1970, 1982.
Hart, Charles Henry. “Edward Savage, Painter and Engraver: and His Unfinished Copper-Plate of ‘the Congress voting independence’
”: A Paper Read Before the Massachusetts Historical Society, January 12, 1905. Boston: Cambridge University Press, 1905.
_______. and Edward Biddle.
Memoirs of the Life and Works of Jean-Antoine Houdon.
Philadelphia: privately printed, 1911.
Hattendorf, Berit M. “Newport’s First Woman Portraitist: Jane Stuart” in
Newport History
, vol. LVIII, no. 232 (winter 1996), pp. 144–169.
Herbert, J[ohn. D[owling].
Irish Varieties, for the last Fifty Years: Written from Recollections.
London: William Joy, 1836.
Hevner, Carol E. “Rembrandt Peale’s Life in Art.”
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
, vol. CX, no. 1 (January 1986), pp. 3–11.
_______.
Rembrandt Peale, 1770–1860: A Life in the Arts.
Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1985.
Idzerda, Stanley J., Loveland, Anne C., and Marc H. Miller
. Lafayette, Hero of Two Worlds.
Queens, NY: Queens Museum, 1989.
Inventory of the Contents of Mount Vernon, 1810.
Preface by Worthington Chauncey Ford. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1909.
Jaffe, Irma B.
The Declaration of In dependence.
New York: Viking Press, 1976.
_______. “Found: John Smibert’s
Portrait of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio.
”
Art Journal
, vol. XXXV, no. 3 (1976), pp. 210–215.
_______.
John Trumbull, Patriot-Artist of the American Revolution
. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1975.
Jefferson, Thomas.
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson.
Julian P. Boyd, ed. 33 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950–present.
Jenkins, Charles Francis.
Washington in Germantown.
Philadelphia: William J. Campbell, 1905.
Kimball, Marie.
Jefferson: The Scene of Eu rope, 1784 to 1789.
New York: Coward-McCann, 1950.
Knapp, Samuel L.
Memoirs of General Lafayette.
Boston: E. G. House, 1824.
La Fayette’s visit to Arlington House.
Unpublished manuscript in the archives at Tudor Place Historic House and Garden, Washington, DC. No date.
Laurens, John.
The Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurens
. New York, 1867.
Lavater, Johann Caspar.
Essays on Physiognomy, designed to promote the Knowledge and Love of Mankind
, vol. III. London: John Murray, 1798.
Lawler, Edward, Jr. “The President’s House in Philadelphia: The Rediscovery of a Lost Landmark,” in the
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
(October 2005).
Lear, Tobias. “The last illness and Death of General Washington,” reprinted in
The Papers of George Washington,
Dorothy Twohig, et al., eds., vol. 4. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999, pp. 547–555.