Captain Alexander Graydon, c. 1746

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 101.2 x 81 cm (39 13/16 x 31 7/8 in.)

framed: 113 x 92.1 x 5.1 cm (44 1/2 x 36 1/4 x 2 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

Accession Number

1966.13.2

Artists / Makers

Robert Feke (painter) American, c. 1707 - c. 1751

Image Use

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Provenance

The sitter, Alexander Graydon [c. 1708-1761], Bristol, PA;[1] his wife, Rachel Marks Graydon [Mrs. Alexander Graydon, d. 1807], Philadelphia;[2] their son, Alexander Graydon, Jr. [1752-1818], Philadelphia;[3] his brother, William Graydon [1759-1840], Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;[4] his son, Henry Murray Graydon [d. 1900], Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;[5] his daughter, Julia Graydon [d. 1954], Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;[6] sale of her estate, 28 October 1954, at her Harrisburg residence; bought by (Edgar H. Sittig, Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA);[7] sold 8 November 1954 to Colonel Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; gift 1966 to NGA.

[1] For his biography see Alexander Graydon, Jr. Memoirs of His Own Time (Philadelphia, 1846, reprinted by the New York Times and the Arno Press, 1969 as Alexander Graydon's Memoirs of His Own Time, John Stockton Littell, ed.), 18-19, 33-35. Much of this information is also in Graydon's Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly Passsed in Pennsylvania, Within the Last Sixty Years (Edinburgh, 1822) and his Life of an Officer, Written by Himself During a Residence in Pennsylvania, Edinburgh, 1828.

[2] For her biography see Alexander Graydon, Jr. Memoirs of His Own Time (Philadelphia, 1846, reprinted by the New York Times and the Arno Press, 1969 as Alexander Graydon's Memoirs of His Own Time, John Stockton Littell, ed.), 20, 409.

[3]Dictionary of American Biography 4, part 1: 524-525.

[4]Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., revised edition, 6 volumes (New York, 1898-1899), 2: 732; Mary Ellen Graydon Sharpe, A Family Retrospect (Indianapolis, 1909), 20-21.

[5] Sharpe 1909, 24-25 mentions that he died "a few years ago," and does not mention his daughters.

[6] Her sister Alice Graydon [d. 1948], Harrisburg, Pa. may have been joint owner of the portrait.

[7]Letter from Edgar Sittig to William P. Campbell, 27 August 1971 (NGA curatorial file).

Associated Names

Garbisch, Edgar William, Mr. and Mrs.
Graydon, Alexander
Graydon, Henry Murray
Graydon, Jr., Alexander
Graydon, Julia
Graydon, Rachel Marks
Graydon, William
Sittig, Edgar H.

Bibliography

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 58, repro.

1970: Mooz, Ralph Peter. "The Art of Robert Feke." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1970: 80-81, 227.

1971: Mooz, R. Peter. "Robert Feke: The Philadelphia Story." In American Painting to 1776: A Reappraisal, edited by Ian M. G. Quimby. Charlottesville, 1971: 203, repro. 204.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 157, repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 15, repro. 16.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 178, 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: 102-104, repro. 103.