Portrait of a Gentleman

c. 1726/1740

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 127.2 x 101.6 cm (50 1/16 x 40 in.)
    framed: 143.5 x 119.4 x 6.4 cm (56 1/2 x 47 x 2 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1947.17.22


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Perhaps (Copley Gallery, Boston). (Robert C. Vose, Boston); sold 21 August 1930 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York, as a portrait of Robert Auchmuty by Joseph Badger;[1] 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 to NGA, 1947.
[1] According to 1928 Clarke exhibition catalogue annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library). The provenance from Samuel Auchmuty, son of the supposed sitter, supplied to the Robert C. Vose by the dealer Rose M. de Forest, has been questioned by John Hill Morgan (undated note in NGA curatorial files) and cannot be verified.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1930

  • Colonial Portraits, Robert C. Vose Galleries, Boston, 1930, no. 6.

Bibliography

1957

  • Sellers, Charles Coleman. "Mezzotint Prototypes of Colonial Portraiture." The Art Quarterly 20 (1957): no. 14B, repro.

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 158, repro., as Portrait of a Man by American (?).

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 306, as Portrait of a Man by Unknown [Formerly Considered American].

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 408, repro., as Portrait of a Man by Unknown Nationality 18th Century.

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: 312-313, repro. 313.

Wikidata ID

Q20177828


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