National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton (Mrs. William Thornton)
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

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Inscription

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Marks and Labels

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Provenance

Bequeathed by the sitter [d. 1865], Washington, D.C., to her step-niece, Adelaide Thomason Talbot [Mrs. Isham Talbot, 1799/1800-1873], Washington, D.C.;[1] her daughter, Mary Louisa Talbot, Kentucky.[2] Virginia Collins Miller [Mrs. Thomas Miller, 1809-1892], Washington, D.C.;[3] her daughter, Anna Thornton Miller Murray [Mrs. Sterling Murray, 1836-1917], Leesburg, Va.[4] Sold 4 January 1922 on behalf of an unidentified descendant by (Mary H. Sully, Brooklyn, New York) to (Art House, Inc., New York);[5] Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York; 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] Mrs. Thornton's will, dated June 1855 (Office of Public Records, Washington, D.C. lists the "Portraits by Stuart to Mrs. Talbot" (copy, NGA curatorial file). Adelaide Talbot was the daughter of James B. Thomason, William Thornton's step-brother, and became the third wife of Isham Talbot, United States senator from Kentucky (1815-1819 and 1820-1825); Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton, "History and Life od Dr. William Thornton," unpublished manuscript, 1828, unpaginated, Thornton Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

[2] George C. Mason, The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart, New York, 1879, 269; Museum of Fine Arts, "Portraits Painted by Stuart...taken from Mason's Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart." Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart, Boston, 1880, 58, no 614; letter of 4 June 1914 from Anna T. Murray to Charles Henry Hart (NGA curatorial file).

[3] Anna T. Murray to Charles Henry Hart, 4 June 1914; Virginia Miller was the wife of Dr. Thomas Miller, owner of the Thornton home on F Street, N.W., at the time of Mrs. Thornton's death (obituary of Anna M. Thornton, Daily National Intelligencer, 18 August 1865). How and when Mrs. Miller acquired the portraits is unknown. For Mrs. Miller's dates see her obituary in the (Washington) Evening Star, 6 June 1892.

[4] Letter of 4 June 1914 from Murray to Hart; Mrs. Murray, who was named after Mrs. Thornton, left her belongings to her two sisters, Virginia Miller and Sally Fendall, "asking them to dispose of them in a proper manner, after my debts are paid, making gifts of remembrance to the special friends whom I love" (copy of will, which was filed 28 November 1917; Circuit Court of Loudoun County, Leesburg, Virginia).

[5] Receipt dated 4 January 1922, signed by Mary H. Sully (NGA curatorial file). Art House, Inc., was founded by Thomas B. Clarke in 1891; from 1919 to 1931 Thomas B. Clarke, Jr., Charles X. Harris, Alice T. Bay, and Clarence J. Dearden owned the firm. Mary Sully and her colleague A.E. Rueff provided Clarke with the provenance of the portraits.

Exhibition History

1922
Portraits Painted in the United States by Early American Artists, The Union League Club, New York, February 1922, no. 7.
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.
1943
American Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1943.
1944
Gilbert Stuart: Portraits Lent by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1944-1945, no. 17
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.
1951
American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1951.
1952
Woodlawn Plantation, Woodlawn, Virginia, 1952, no cat.
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.
1956
American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1956.
1960
American Painters of the South, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1960, no. 32.
1970
Extended loan for use by Blair House, Washington, D.C., 1970-1976.
1976
Extended loan for use by The Octagon House, Washington, D.C., 1976-1992.

Bibliography

1879
Mason, George C. The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1879: 269.
1880
"Portraits Painted by Stuart...taken from Mason's Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart." In Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1880: 58, no. 615.
1907
"Diary of Mrs. William Thornton 1800-1863." Records of the Columbia Historical Society 10 (1907): 88-226.
1915
Clark, Allen. "Dr. and Mrs. William Thornton." Records of the Columbia Historical Society 18 (1915): repro. opp. 150.
1926
Park 1926, 754, no. 840.
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.
1970
American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 106, repro., as Mrs. William Thornton.
1973
Mount 1973, 89, 127, repro. 91.
1980
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 236, repro., as Mrs. William Thornton.
1981
Williams 1981, 67, repro. 68.
1990
Carson, Barbara G. Ambitious Appetites: Dining, Behavior, and Patterns of Consumption in Federal Washington. Washington, D.C., 1990: repro. 77.
1992
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 353, repro., as Mrs. William Thornton.
1995
Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 243-246, repro. 245.
2004
Barratt, Carrie Rebora, and Ellen G. Miles. Gilbert Stuart. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Mus. of Art, New York; Natl. Gal. of Art, Washington, D.C. (for the Natl. Port. Gal.). New York, New Haven, and London, 2004: 239, 243, 254, 258-260, 264, fig. 145.
null
Thornton, Anna Maria. Diaries, 1793-1863. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

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