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John Trumbull (painter) American, 1756 - 1843 Patrick Tracy, 1784/1786 oil on canvas Overall: 232.5 x 133.7 cm (91 9/16 x 52 5/8 in.) framed: 252.8 x 154.9 x 10.7 cm (99 1/2 x 61 x 4 3/16 in.) Gift of Patrick T. Jackson 1964.15.1 Not on View |
Patrick Tracy demonstrates a colonial American rapidly absorbing the British "Grand Manner." The subject, a Massachusetts warehouse owner, appropriately rests his hand on an anchor and stands on a shell-strewn beach before crates and barrels. His hoary features reveal his seventy-some years, but his delicate fingers and slender calves apparently belong to a much younger man. In the colonies, John Singleton Copley had encouraged Trumbull in painting, and the face's sharp realism is an homage to Copley's American frankness. The body, however, adheres to the flattering canons for harmonized proportions that were advocated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, president of the Royal Academy.
Trumbull's account book for 1784 resolves the dilemma: "Whole length of Mr. P. Tracy (father of Nat) leaning on an anchor -- head copied." Nat Tracy, the subject's son, apparently commissioned the portrait while in London on business. Since Patrick was still in America, Trumbull adapted his face from a likeness which Nat must have lent him, but did the rest in his new style.
While working on this life-size portrait, Trumbull received an unprecedented honor from Benjamin West. West, who had intended to paint a vast series of scenes illustrating the characters and events of the War of Independence, decided he was too busy and passed the idea along to his pupil. The resulting history paintings culminated in Trumbull's world-famous murals in the Capitol's Rotunda.