Portrait of a Gentleman

c. 1770/1785

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 29.5 x 24.8 cm (11 5/8 x 9 3/4 in.)
    framed: 50.5 x 42.2 x 4.6 cm (19 7/8 x 16 5/8 x 1 13/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1947.17.83

Media for this artwork is unavailable and the object is not on view. See artworks now on view

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Rose M. [Mrs. Augustus] de Forest, New York); sold 15 August 1927 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York, as a portrait of Mordecai Gist by James Peale;[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 Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, supplied by the dealer, de Forest, cannot be verified. It was declared untenable (based on the report on the Clarke collection by James W. Lane and Anna W. Rutledge, 1952, in NGA curatorial files) by William P. Campbell, memorandum, 16 April 1964, in the curatorial file.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1928

  • A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Early American Portrait Painters, The Century Association, New York, no. 3, as General Mordecai Gist by James Peale.

  • 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 General Mordecai Gist by James Peale.

Bibliography

1932

  • Sherman, Frederic Fairchild. Early American Painting. New York and London, 1932: 64.

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 160, repro., as Portrait of a Man by American (?).

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 308, as Portrait of a Man by Unknown [Formerly Considered American].

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 415, repro., as Portrait of a Man by Unknown Nationality 19th 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: 316-317, repro. 317.

Inscriptions

noted as inscribed on original stretcher (there is no inscription on present stretcher): Brig. Genl. Mordecai Gist by James Peale

Wikidata ID

Q20178504

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