Gouverneur Kemble
1853
Artist, American, 1796 - 1886
Artwork overview
-
Medium
oil on canvas
-
Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 86.3 x 68.6 cm (34 x 27 in.)
framed: 118.7 x 100.3 x 7.6 cm (46 3/4 x 39 1/2 x 3 in.) -
Accession
1947.17.2
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
(Rose M. de Forest [Mrs. Augustus de Forest], New York); purchased 9 May 1922 by Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[1] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1947 to NGA.
[1] The name of the seller and the date of the purchase by Clarke are recorded in an annotated copy of Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries Collected by Thomas B. Clarke (Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928) in files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (transcription in NGA curatorial records and copy in NGA library). According to de Forest, the painting was purchased from the estate of Abraham Van Buren, son of President Martin Van Buren. Although Kemble and Martin Van Buren were friends, Abraham Van Buren's ownership of this portrait is unverified. His will (copy in NGA curatorial files) makes no mention of the painting.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1923
Exhibition of Portraits by Early American Portrait Painters, The Union League Club, New York, 1923, no. 17.
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.
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.
1955
Famous Americans, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, 1955, no cat.
1967
Loan for display with permanent collection, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1967-1980.
1986
Extended loan for use by Ambassador Robie Marcus Hooker Palmer, U.S. Embassy residence, Budapest, Hungary, 1986-1990.
Bibliography
1853
"Fine Arts." Home Journal 2 (8 October 1853): 6.
1867
Tuckerman 1867, 188.
1887
Appleton's Cyclopedia of Biography Edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. 6 vols. New York, 1888: 2:268.
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.
1930
Sherman 1930, 41; reprinted in Sherman, Frederic Fairchild, "Asher B. Durand as a Portrait Painter." Art in America 18 (October 1930): 316.
1966
Lawall, David B. "Asher Brown Durand: His Art and Art Theory in Relation to his Times." 4 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1966: 3:154-155.
1970
American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 50, repro.
1980
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 146, repro.
1992
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 161, repro.
1996
Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 136-138, color repro.
1997
Fahlman, Betsy. John Ferguson Weir, Newark and London, 1997, p. 22, repro.
Inscriptions
lower right: A.B.D. 1853
Wikidata ID
Q20188031