Provenance

Mr. Peter Jay

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Shown from the knees up, a balding, pale-skinned man wearing a voluminous rust-red and black robe sits angled to our right in this vertical portrait painting. The man is clean-shaven, and tufts of ash-brown hair curls around his ears. He looks to our right with gray eyes under slender brows. The tip of his long nose comes to a prominent point, and his wide, thin, pale pink lips are closed. A white, ruffled ascot is tucked into the lapels of a red and black robe edged with silvery white. The fabric has a sheen, suggesting satin or silk. The man’s legs are crossed and covered with inky-black fabric. The man’s right hand, to our left, rests in his lap, and the other rests on the edge of a book propped upright on a table covered in a dusky, dark pink cloth. A muted copper-red curtain hangs to the left, and a column and its base is outlined against the parchment-brown wall behind him. The portrait is loosely painted with some visible strokes, especially in the costume and background.
Gilbert Stuart, John Jay, 1794, oil on canvas, Gift of the Jay Family, 2009.132.1

John Jay

Gilbert Stuart · 1794 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2009.132.1