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Joseph Highmore

Portrait of a Lady, c. 1730/1735

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 91.6 x 71 cm (36 1/16 x 27 15/16 in.)

framed: 108 x 88.3 x 5.7 cm (42 1/2 x 34 3/4 x 2 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1942.8.5

Artists / Makers

Joseph Highmore (painter) English, 1692 - 1780

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

falsely signed and dated, lower left on ledge: R F Pinx / 1746; on reverse of old stretcher (now replaced): PORTRAIT OF WILLIAMINA MOORE, WIFE OF DR. PHINEAS BOND AT THE AGE OF NINETEEN YEARS, 1746

Provenance

(Rose M. [Mrs. Augustus] de Forest, New York); sold 12 October 1926 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848- 1931], New York, as a portrait of Williamina Moore by Robert Feke;[1] sold 29 January 1936 by Clarke's executors through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), as part of the Clarke collection, to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift to NGA, 1942.

[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 Colonel John Moore of New York, uncle of the supposed sitter, supplied by the dealer, de Forest, has been shown by archival research to be spurious: James Lane and Anna Rutledge, report on the Clarke collection, 1952, quoted by William P. Campbell, memorandum, 3 May 1966, in NGA curatorial files. Campbell sums up the provenance as "completely untenable."

Associated Names

Clarke, Thomas Benedict
Knoedler & Company, M.
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
de Forest, Rose M.

Exhibition History

1928: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Early American Portrait Painters, The Century Association, New York, 1928, no. 11, as Williamina Moore by Robert Feke.

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 Williamina Moore by Robert Feke.

1939: American Historical Paintings, Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, 1939, no. 10, as Williamina Moore by Robert Feke.

1943: American Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1943.

1947: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1947.

1948: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1948.

1949: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1949.

1949: Exhibition of Early American Portraits on Loan from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, North Carolina, 1949, no. 1, as Williamina Moore by Robert Feke.

1950: The Face of American History, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, 1950, no. 6, as Williamina Moore by Robert Feke.

1951: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1951.

1951: American Portraits from the National Gallery of Art, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1951, no. 2, repro, as Williamina Moore by Robert Feke (organized by the Atlanta Art Association).

1953: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1953.

1955: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1955.

1956: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1956.

1961: Extended loan for use by the U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C., 1961-1962.

Technical Summary

The medium-fine canvas is tightly plain-woven; it has been lined. The ground is white, smoothly applied and of moderate thickness. There is a grey imprimatura beneath the figure, which is used for the shadows in the dress, and a reddish-brown imprimatura under the landscape on the right. The painting is executed richly, fluidly, and loosely except in the flesh tones; the flesh tones are more tightly painted, blended wet into wet, with red and reddish-brown shadows; the blue drapery is underpainted with white, glazed over with deep blue, with thinner glazes in the highlights; the dress is painted creamily, with pink and brown glazes; the landscape is very fluidly painted in what appears to be a single layer over the imprimatura. The "signature" has been shown to be false since it continues into cracks in the underlying paint film. The paint surface is abraded from heavy-handed cleaning, especially in the darks, and the impasto has been flattened during lining. There is major retouching in parts of the head; large losses in the right shoulder and between the left arm and torso are inpainted; and much of the deeper shadow in the blue drapery, and the lower left of the picture, are reinforced with glazes. The thick, natural resin varnish has discolored yellow to a significant degree.

Bibliography

1930: Foote, Henry Wilder. Robert Feke, Colonial Portrait Painter. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1930: 70, 105, 170-171, 210, 213, repro. facing 70.

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: 308, as Unknown [Formerly Considered American].

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 408, 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: 117-120, repro. 119.