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Gilbert Stuart

Sarah Homes Tappan (Mrs. Benjamin Tappan), 1814

Not on View

Medium

oil on wood

Dimensions

overall: 72.8 x 58.6 cm (28 11/16 x 23 1/16 in.)

framed: 90.2 x 78.7 x 8.3 cm (35 1/2 x 31 x 3 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Lady Vereker

Accession Number

1970.34.3

Artists / Makers

Gilbert Stuart (painter) American, 1755 - 1828

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

The sitter's son, Lewis Tappan [1788-1873], Brooklyn, New York;[1] his daughter, Julianna Aspinwell Tappan [b. 1816],[2] Brooklyn, New York; bequeathed to her sister, Ellen A. A. Hulett [d. 1906], Newburgh, New York; bequeathed to her daughter, Anna Hulett [d. 1961], Newburgh, New York, and Washington, D.C.;[3] purchased 26 January 1928 through (Ehrich Galleries, New York) by her cousin, Clarence Winthrop Bowen [1852-1935], New York, New York, and Woodstock, Connecticut;[4] his daughter, Roxana Wentworth Bowen, Lady Gordon Vereker [1895-1968], Valbonne, France;[5] bequest 1970 to NGA.

[1] Daniel Langdon Tappan, Tappan-Toppan Genealogy: Ancestors and Descendants of Abraham Toppan of Newbury, Massachusetts, 1606-1672, Arlington, Massachusetts, 1915, 25, 40.

[2] Her birth date is in Memoirs of Mrs. Sarah Tappan, New York, 1834, 131; she is listed as "Julia" in Tappan 1915, 40.

[3] The provenance to Anna Hulett is recounted in her typed memorandum (NGA curatorial file). A label attached to the reverse records that the painting was owned by Anna and her sister Margaret and that on 27 June 1924, H.K. Bush-Brown of 1729 G Street, Washington, lent it to the National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution (now the National Museum of American Art). The Gallery's records indicate that the portrait, which was for sale, was withdrawn 17 September 1924 (copies, NGA curatorial file). Anna Hulett died in Washington on 16 May 1961 (probate court records, District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia; copy, NGA curatorial file).

[4] Bowen was the son of Ellen Hulett's aunt Lucy Maria and Henry Chandler Bowen; Tappan 1915, 40-41. His diary entry of 1 February 1928 (see the systematic catalogue entry) and the article "Acquires Portrait Sought 54 Years," (New York) World (18 February 1928), 12, document the acquisition, which is confirmed by the phrase "C.W. Bowen - owner 1928" that was added in pencil to the entry on this portrait in a copy of Lawrence Park, Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of his Works, with an Account of his Life by John Hill Morgan and an Appreciation by Royal Cortissoz, 4 vols., New York, 1926 (library, National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.). The writer is unidentified.

[5] Bowen's will, dated 1 August 1935 (copy, NGA curatorial file), states that he gave this portrait to his daughter during his lifetime. Her birth date is in Tappan 1915, 41; her death date is recorded in the NGA curatorial file.

Associated Names

Bowen, Clarence Winthrop
Ehrich Galleries
Hulett, Anna
Hulett, Ellen Tappan
Tappan, Juliana Aspinwall
Tappan, Lewis
Vereker, Roxana Wentworth, Lady

Exhibition History

1828: Exhibition of Portraits Painted by the Late Gilbert Stuart, Esq., Boston Athenaeum, 1828, no. 63

1928: Portraits by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), Ehrich Galleries, New York, 1928, no. 9

Bibliography

n.d.: Lewis Tappan Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

1828: "Memoir of the late Mrs. Sarah Tappan of Northampton, Masschusetts, the materials of which have been furnished by a surviving relative." The Home Missionary and American Pastor's Journal 1, no. 7 (1 November 1828): 121-125.

1834: Memoir of Mrs. Sarah Tappan. New York, 1834: repro. frontispiece (engraving by S. S. Osgood), 4.

1915: Tappan, Daniel Langdon. Tappan - Toppan Genealogy: Ancestors and Descendants of Abraham Toppan of Newbury, Massachusetts, 1606-1672. Arlington, Massachusetts, 1915: 24-25, 40-41.

1917: Fielding, Mantle. American Engravers Upon Copper and Steel. Philadelphia, PA: Wickersham Press, 1917, p. 151, no. 748.

1924: Clarence Winthrop Bowen, Diary 1924-1934. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts: 107-108.

1926: Park 1926, 739, no. 821, repro.

1928: "Acquires Portrait Sought 54 Years." The World (New York, New York) (18 February 1928): 12.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 235, repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 356, 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: 258-261, color repro. 259.