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Gilbert Stuart

Counsellor John Dunn, c. 1798

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 74 x 61.5 cm (29 1/8 x 24 3/16 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1942.8.14

Artists / Makers

Gilbert Stuart (painter) American, 1755 - 1828

Image Use

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Provenance

Unidentified descendants of the sitter, Norfolk, England; sold 1909 to (James Connell and Sons, London); (Louis Ralston, New York), 1909.[1] James W. Ellsworth [1849-1925], New York; sold March 1923 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[2] sold 26 March 1923 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[3] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection on 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] The early provenance of the portrait is documented only by a letter from Tom Connell of James Connell and Sons, London, dated 25 September 1909, to Louis Ralston (NGA curatorial file). Clarke may have been given this letter in 1923. He apparently had asked Louis Ralston about the provenance of the portrait, for Ralston wrote on 1 June 1923 that he would "take up the matter" with Mr. Connell in London "and advise you of the result."

[2] Melissa De Medeiros, librarian, M. Knoedler & Co., confirmed the purchase by Knoedler in a letter dated 7 March 1992 (NGA curatorial file). Ellsworth, a financier and art collector, also sold his collection of books and manuscripts in 1923 for $450,000; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 63 vols, Clifton, New Jersey, 1893-1894, 26:176 and Who's Who in America, vol. 8, Chicago, 1914, 727.

[3] The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in a copy of Portraits by Early American Painters of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Collected by Thomas B. Clarke, Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928, annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library).

Associated Names

Clarke, Thomas Benedict
Connell and Sons, James
Ellsworth, James W.
Knoedler & Company, M.
Knoedler & Company, M.
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Ralston, Louis

Exhibition History

1924: Exhibition of Portraits by Early American Portrait Painters, The Union League Club, New York, February 1924, no. 17.

1928: Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928-1931, unnumbered and unpaginated catalogue.

1944: Gilbert Stuart: Portraits Lent by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1944-1945, no. 13

1947: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1947.

1948: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1948.

1949: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1949.

1950: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1950.

1953: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1953.

1955: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1955.

1955: Famous Americans, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, 1955, no catalogue.

1956: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1956.

1969: Inaugural Exhibition: American Portraits, The Art Museum, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 1969, no catalogue.

1992: Extended loan for use by Ambassador William Fitzgerald, U.S. Embassy residence, Dublin, Ireland, 1992-1993.

1993: Extended loan for use by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith, U.S. Embassy residence, Dublin, Ireland, 1993-1998.

1998: Extended loan for use by Ambassador Michael J. Sullivan, and subsequent ambassadors, U.S. Embassy residence, Dublin, Ireland, 1998-2018.

Bibliography

1867: Tuckerman 1867, 110

1926: Park 1926, 296, no. 258

1928: Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke. Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928, unnumbered.

1964: Harris, Paul S. "Gilbert Stuart and a Portrait of Mrs. Sarah Apthorp Morton." Winterthur Portfolio 1 (1964): 198-220

1964: Mount 1964, 367

1969: Watson, Ross. "Irish Portraits in American Collections." Quarterly Bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society 12 no. 2 (April-June 1969): 40-41, 43, 48 repro.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 102, repro.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 229, repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 350, repro.

1995: Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 216-219, repro. 217.