Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis (Mrs. Lawrence Lewis)

1804

Gilbert Stuart

Painter, American, 1755 - 1828

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 237-240, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf
On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 60-A

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Given by the sitter to her son, Lorenzo Lewis [1803-1847], Audley, Clarke County, Virginia;[1] his widow, Esther Maria Coxe Lewis [1804-1885], Clarke County, Virginia; their son, Edward Parke Custis Lewis [1837-1892], Hoboken, New Jersey;[2] his son, Edwin Augustus Stevens Lewis [1870-1906], Hoboken, New Jersey; his widow, Alice Stuart Walker Lewis [1877-1973], Hoboken, New Jersey; their son, H. H. Walker Lewis [b. 1904], Baltimore;[3] gift 1974 to NGA.
[1] An inscription in ink on the stretcher reads: "L. Lewis." A second reads: "For Lorenzo Lewis given by his Mother 1836." His dates and those of his wife and their descendants are found in Burke's Presidential Families of the United States of America, 2nd ed., London, 1981, 21-22.
[2] H. H. Walker Lewis to William P. Campbell, 29 November 1974, with a memo dated 28 November 1974 (NGA curatorial file). "Lorenzo left his household furnishings . . . for the use of his widow for life, thereafter to be divided among his six sons in equal shares. Esther Maria died in 1885, and in the autumn of 1888 the portraits were divided by drawing lots . . . we know of the disposition of the Nelly Custis portrait from a letter written to his wife by Edward Parke Custis Lewis, who was then Minister to Portugal: `Dear Mary . . . American mail just in & a letter from Dainger in which he tells me that I have drawn the Nellie Custis picture by Stuart . . . Yr. affect husband E.P.C.L.'"
[3] On Mrs. Lewis' death, 22 November 1973, the painting went to her son H. H. Walker Lewis as "remainderman" under his father's will; memo of 28 November 1974 from Lewis to Campbell.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1889

  • Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of George Washington-Loan Exhibition of Historical Portraits and Relics, Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 1889, no. 142

1967

  • Gilbert Stuart, Portraitist of the Young Republic, The National Gallery of Art; The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1967, no. 33

2003

  • Jefferson's America & Napoleon's France: An Exhibition for the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial, New Orleans Museum of Art, 2003, no. 143, repro.

Bibliography

1876

  • Stuart, Jane. "The Stuart Portraits of Washington." Scribner's Monthly 12, no. 3 (July 1876): 371-373.

1879

  • Mason, George C. The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1879: 27, 214.

1880

  • "Portraits Painted by Stuart...taken from Mason's Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart." In Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1880: 46, no. 367.

1892

  • Bowen, Clarence W., ed. The History of the Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of George Washington. New York, 1892: 145, no. 142, repro. opp. 256, 441.

1926

  • Park 1926, 294, 476-477, no. 491, 901.

1964

  • Mount 1964, 255, 370.

1973

  • Mount, Charles Merrill. "Gilbert Stuart in Washington; with a Catalogue of His Portraits Painted between December 1803 and July 1805." Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 48 (1973): 106.

1975

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 382-383, color repro.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 231, repro.

1981

  • Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 67, repro. 68, 72.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 378, no. 536, color repro., as Mrs. Lawrence Lewis.

1991

  • Brady, Patricia, ed. George Washington's Beautiful Nelly; The Letters of Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1794-1851. Columbia, South Carolina, 1991: 260-261.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 353, 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: 237-240, color repro. 239.

Wikidata ID

Q20181765

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