Portrait of a Lady
c. 1730/1750
Painter
Possibly British 18th Century
Attributed to
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 76.5 x 63.5 cm (30 1/8 x 25 in.)
framed: 85.1 x 72.4 x 3.5 cm (33 1/2 x 28 1/2 x 1 3/8 in.) -
Accession Number
1947.17.31
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
(Rose M. de Forest, New York); sold 23 November 1923 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York, as a portrait of Margaret Hamilton Allen by James Claypoole;[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 through descendants of the supposed sitter and Collection of Julia Titus, Albany, N.Y., supplied by the dealer, de Forest, has been found suspect by archival research, as described in James W. Lane and Anna W. Rutledge, Report on the Clarke Collection, 1952, 40-46 and 54, in NGA curatorial files. An expertise by John Hill Morgan quoted in the curatorial file states: "Out. Same questionable Titus pedigree."
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1924
Exhibition of the Earliest Known Portraits of Americans by Painters of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, The Union League Club, New York, March 1924, no. 5, as Margaret Hamilton Allen by James Claypole.
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 Margaret Hamilton Allen by James Claypoole.
Bibliography
1928
Cuthbert, Lee. "The Thomas B. Clarke Collection of Early American Portraits." American Magazine of Art 19 (1928): 295.
1932
Sherman, Frederic Fairchild. Early American Paintings. New York and London, 1932: 55.
1970
American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 158, repro., as American (?).
1980
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 306, as Unknown [Formerly Considered American].
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 409, repro., as 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: 314-315, repro. 314.
Inscriptions
probably falsely signed and dated, across center reverse in brown ink or paint: Margaret Allen / Drawn and Colored by / Claypole Philä 1746
Wikidata ID
Q20177852