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American 18th Century

Matilda Caroline Cruger, c. 1795

West Building, Ground Floor - Gallery 42B

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 91.7 x 71.6 cm (36 1/8 x 28 3/16 in.)

framed: 123.2 x 102.2 x 7 cm (48 1/2 x 40 1/4 x 2 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1942.8.13

Artists / Makers

American 18th Century (painter)

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Overview

Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 367-368, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf

Provenance

Maria Taylor Hunt [Mrs. Ward Hunt, d. 1912], Utica, New York;[1] bequeathed to her niece, Caroline Matilda Van Rensselaer Hillhouse [Mrs. Phineas P. Hillhouse], Cambridge, Massachusetts;[2] (Charles Henry Hart, New York, and Frank W. Bayley, Boston); sold 1917 to Franklin Bulkeley Smith [1864-1918], Worcester, Massachusetts;[3] (his estate sale, American Art Association, New York, 23 April 1920, no. 141); purchased by W. S. Burke for Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[4] 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] Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists: American Artist Life Comprising Biographical and Critical Sketches of American Artists, New York, 1867, 5th printing, 1870, reprint, New York, 1966, 109, 628, and George C. Mason, The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart, New York, 1879, 282, list the portrait as owned by her husband Ward Hunt. Mrs. Hunt is listed as the owner in 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, 61. Mrs. Hunt is the first documented owner of the portrait, which was assumed to have come to her from her stepmother Caroline Matilda Yates Taylor [Mrs. James Taylor, d. 1866], Albany, New York, the sitter's daughter.

[2] Maria T. Hunt's will (Surrogate's Court, Oneida County, New York; copy, NGA curatorial file) lists her sister Sarah A. Van Rensselaer and her niece Caroline Van Rensselaer Hillhouse as her primary heirs; the inventory of her estate lists "2 family portraits (oil) with gold frames, latter damaged." Because Mrs. Van Rensselaer was deceased, Mrs. Hillhouse inherited the portraits. This provenance is repeated in American Art Association, Catalogue of the Frank Bulkeley Smith Collection Sale [23 April 1920], New York, Smith 1920, unpaginated, lot 141, which states that the portrait went to Mrs. Hillhouse under the terms of Mrs. Taylor's will.

[3] 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, 244-245.

[4] "Paintings Sold at Auction, Season of 1919-1920," American Art Annual 17 (1920), 331. The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in a copy of Portraits by Early American Painters of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Collected by Thomas B. Clarke (Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928) annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library).

Associated Names

American Art Association
Bayley, Frank W.
Burke, W.S.
Clarke, Thomas Benedict
Hart, Charles Henry
Hillhouse, Caroline Matilda Van Rensselaer
Hunt, Maria Taylor
Knoedler & Company, M.
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Smith, Franklin Bulkeley

Exhibition History

1922: Portraits Painted in the United States by Early American Artists, The Union League Club, New York, February 1922, no. 17, as 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 by Gilbert Stuart.

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. 6

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.

1949: Exhibition of Early American Portraits on Loan from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, North Carolina, 1949, no. 6.

1950: The Face of American History, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, 1950, no. 16, as by Gilbert Stuart.

1951: American Portraits from the National Gallery of Art, High Museum of Art, 1951, no. 15 (organized by the Atlanta Art Association).

1952: [Opening exhibition], Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1952, no. cat.

1952: [Opening exhibition of new art gallery], Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1952-1953, no cat.

1952: Opening Exhibition of The George Thomas Hunter Gallery of Art, Chattanooga Art Association, Tennessee, 1952, unnumbered.

1985: Extended loan for use by Ambassador Faith Whittlesey, U.S. Embassy residence, Bern, Switzerland, 1985-1988.

1988: Extended loan for use by Ambassador Philip D. Winn, U.S. Embassy residence, Bern, Switzerland, 1988-1990.

Bibliography

1867: Tuckerman 1867, 109, 628

1879: Mason, George C. The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1879: 282.

1880: MFA 1880, 61, no. 683

1926: Park 1926, 244-245, no. 196, repro.

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, as by Gilbert Stuart.

1933: Sawitzky, William. "Some Unrecorded Portraits by Gilbert Stuart." Art in America 21 (June, 1933): 84, 91-92

1964: Mount 1964, 169, 366

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 132, repro.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 272, repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 398, 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: 367-368, color repro. 369.