James Massy-Dawson (?), c. 1790/1800

Not on View

Medium

oil on wood

Dimensions

overall: 74.1 x 59.3 cm (29 3/16 x 23 3/8 in.)

framed: 99.1 x 85.4 x 8.3 cm (39 x 33 5/8 x 3 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1954.1.11

Artists / Makers

Henry Singleton (painter) British, 1766 - 1839

Image Use

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Provenance

Apparently John, 6th Baron Massy [1835-1915], Fetard, County Tipperary [Ireland].[1] (B.F. Stevens & Brown, London), in 1917.[2] (Tooth Brothers, London); purchased 15 May 1919 through (G.S. Sedgwick) as by Gilbert Stuart, for Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[3] sold by Clarke's executors to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), from whom it was purchased 29 January 1936, as part of the Clarke collection, by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1954 to NGA.

[1] The dealer, G.S. Sedgwick, reportedly wrote to Thomas B. Clarke at the time of the latter's purchased of the picture that "he had seen the portrait about 1915 in Lord Massy's house near Dublin" (noted by William P. Campbell, memorandum, 10 January 1966, in NGA curatorial files).

[2] B.F. Stevens & Brown to Charles Henry Hart, 13 September 1917, offering the portrait as from the Massey-Dawson [sic] family (in NGA curatorial files).

[3] G.S. Sedgwick to Thomas Clarke, 14 and 24 April 1919, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Clarke, Thomas Benedict
Knoedler & Company, M.
Massy, John Thomas William, 6th Baron
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Sedgwick, G.S.
Stevens and Brown, B.F.
Tooth & Sons, Ltd., Arthur

Exhibition History

1922: Portraits Painted In Europe by Early American Artists, The Union League Club, New York, January 1922, no. 14, as James Massy Dawson by Gilbert Stuart.

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, as James Massy Dawson by Gilbert Stuart.

Technical Summary

The wood panel is constructed of three vertical members; it has been thinned and marouflaged to a thick wooden support cradled on the reverse. The ground is white gesso, thinly applied. There is a warm imprimatura. The painting is generally broadly executed with a palette of earth tones; the face and hair are more delicately modeled; the application varies from dense, opaque layers to transparent glazes. There is little damage to the central section of the painting, but there is a considerable amount of discolored overpaint concealing the two vertical seams on either side of the actual portrait; there is a thin band of overpaint around the entire edge of the painting to compensate for the slightly larger size of the auxiliary wooden support. The thick natural resin varnish has discolored yellow moderately.

Bibliography

1926: Park, Lawrence. Gilbert Stuart. 4 vols. New York, 1926: 1: no. 223; 3:repro. 136.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 166, repro., as by Unknown British.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 48, repro., as British School.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 309, as by British School.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 21, repro.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 251-253, repro. 253.