Captain Alexander Graydon
c. 1746
Painter, American, c. 1707 - c. 1751

Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 101.2 x 81 cm (39 13/16 x 31 7/8 in.)
framed: 113 x 92.1 x 5.1 cm (44 1/2 x 36 1/4 x 2 in.) -
Accession
1966.13.2
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
The sitter, Alexander Graydon [c. 1708-1761], Bristol, PA;[1] his wife, Rachel Marks Graydon [Mrs. Alexander Graydon, d. 1807], Philadelphia;[2] their son, Alexander Graydon, Jr. [1752-1818], Philadelphia;[3] his brother, William Graydon [1759-1840], Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;[4] his son, Henry Murray Graydon [d. 1900], Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;[5] his daughter, Julia Graydon [d. 1954], Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;[6] sale of her estate, 28 October 1954, at her Harrisburg residence; bought by (Edgar H. Sittig, Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA);[7] sold 8 November 1954 to Colonel Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; gift 1966 to NGA.
[1] For his biography see Alexander Graydon, Jr. Memoirs of His Own Time (Philadelphia, 1846, reprinted by the New York Times and the Arno Press, 1969 as Alexander Graydon's Memoirs of His Own Time, John Stockton Littell, ed.), 18-19, 33-35. Much of this information is also in Graydon's Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly Passsed in Pennsylvania, Within the Last Sixty Years (Edinburgh, 1822) and his Life of an Officer, Written by Himself During a Residence in Pennsylvania, Edinburgh, 1828.
[2] For her biography see Alexander Graydon, Jr. Memoirs of His Own Time (Philadelphia, 1846, reprinted by the New York Times and the Arno Press, 1969 as Alexander Graydon's Memoirs of His Own Time, John Stockton Littell, ed.), 20, 409.
[3]Dictionary of American Biography 4, part 1: 524-525.
[4]Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., revised edition, 6 volumes (New York, 1898-1899), 2: 732; Mary Ellen Graydon Sharpe, A Family Retrospect (Indianapolis, 1909), 20-21.
[5] Sharpe 1909, 24-25 mentions that he died "a few years ago," and does not mention his daughters.
[6] Her sister Alice Graydon [d. 1948], Harrisburg, Pa. may have been joint owner of the portrait.
[7]Letter from Edgar Sittig to William P. Campbell, 27 August 1971 (NGA curatorial file).
Associated Names
Bibliography
1970
American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 58, repro.
Mooz, Ralph Peter. "The Art of Robert Feke." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1970: 80-81, 227.
1971
Mooz, R. Peter. "Robert Feke: The Philadelphia Story." In American Painting to 1776: A Reappraisal, edited by Ian M. G. Quimby. Charlottesville, 1971: 203, repro. 204.
1980
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 157, repro.
1981
Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 15, repro. 16.
1992
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 178, repro.
1995
Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 102-104, repro. 103.
Wikidata ID
Q20177962