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Gilbert Stuart

Ann Calvert Stuart Robinson (Mrs. William Robinson), c. 1804

West Building, Ground Floor - Gallery 42A

Medium

oil on wood

Dimensions

overall: 71.8 x 57.5 cm (28 1/4 x 22 5/8 in.)

framed: 94 x 80.7 cm (37 x 31 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1942.8.22

Artists / Makers

Gilbert Stuart (painter) American, 1755 - 1828

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 246-249, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf

Provenance

Gift of the sitter's sister, Eleanor Custis Stuart [b. 1796], Alexandria, Virginia, to her great-niece, Rebecca Lynn Webster [b. 1861], Rochester, New York;[1] (Jonce I. McGurk, New York); sold 5 August 1919 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[2] purchased 3 March 1923 by Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[3] 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] Letter from Rebecca Lynn Webster, 5 August 1919, to Jonce I. McGurk, New York (typed copy, NGA curatorial file). For their relationship and dates of birth (dates of death are undetermined), see Robert Winder Johnson, The Ancestry of Rosalie Morris Johnson, Philadelphia, 1905, 30, 41. According to Jane Stuart, "The Stuart Portraits of Washington," in Scribner's Monthly 12 (July 1876), 373, the portrait was owned by Mrs. George Goldsborough, granddaughter of Mrs. Robinson's half-sister Mrs. Thomas Law. 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, 650, states, however, that the painting was only on loan to Mrs. Goldsborough, who lived in Talbot County, Maryland.

[2] The dated receipt for McGurk's sale to Knoedler is in the NGA curatorial file.

[3] The Knoedler invoice dated 28 February 1923 is in the NGA curatorial file; 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

Clarke, Thomas Benedict
Knoedler & Company, M.
Knoedler & Company, M.
McGurk, Jonce I.
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Stuart, Eleanor Custis
Webster, Rebecca L.

Exhibition History

1879: Said to have been exhibited in 1789, according to Knoedler 1923 invoice and Park 1926, citing a label (no longer extant) on the back of the painting

1921: Early American Portraits, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1921, no. 6

1924: Exhibition of Portraits by Early American Portrait Painters, The Union League Club, New York, February 1924, no. 11.

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.

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.

1953: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1953.

Bibliography

1876: Stuart, Jane. "The Stuart Portraits of Washington." Scribner's Monthly 12, no. 3 (July 1876):373

1879: Mason, George C. The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1879: 250.

1880: MFA 1880, 53, no. 516

1914: "Virginia Gleaning in England." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 22, no. 2 (1914):22-24

1926: Park 1926, 649-650, no. 711, 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.

1950: Torbert, Alice Coyle. Eleanor Calvert and her Circle. New York, 1950:48, 62, 94, 102, 114, 119-123

1964: Mount 1964, 374

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 106, repro., as Mrs. William Robinson.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 234, repro., as Mrs. William Robinson.

1991: Callcott, Margaret Law, ed. Mistress of Riversdale; The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, 1795-1821. Baltimore and London, 1991: 63, 70-71n, 80, 82-84n, 111-112, 199, 123-124, 163, 169, 176-177. 185-187

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 355, repro., as Mrs. William Robinson.

1995: Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 246-249, color repro. 247.