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Charles Loring Elliott

William Sidney Mount, c. 1850

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 77.2 x 64 cm (30 3/8 x 25 3/16 in.)

framed: 96.5 x 83.8 x 7 cm (38 x 33 x 2 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1947.17.6

Artists / Makers

Charles Loring Elliott (artist) American, 1812 - 1868

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

center right: C.L. Elliott.

Provenance

The artist, Hoboken, New Jersey, and Albany, New York; his estate; (his estate sale, George A. Leavitt, New York, 7-8 December 1876, 1st day, no. 46);[1] David Johnson [1827-1908], New York; his widow, Marie Louise Johnson, Walden, New York; John W. Reid, Walden;[2] purchased 26 or 28 March 1917 by Thomas B. Clarke [1848 1931], New York;[3] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1947 to NGA.

[1] A tattered label on the stretcher seems to be a clipping from the catalogue of this sale, showing the entry for no. 46, "Portrait of Wm. Mount."

[2] An undated prospectus, signed by Charles X. Harris (in NGA curatorial files), conveys provenance information that Harris obtained from an interview with Marie Johnson.

[3] The name J.W. Reid and the purchase date of 28 March are recorded in a copy of Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries Collected by Thomas B. Clarke (Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928) annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library). Harris' prospectus gives this purchase date as 26 March.

Associated Names

Clarke, Thomas Benedict
Elliott, Charles Loring
Johnson, David
Johnson, Marie Louise
Knoedler & Company, M.
Leavitt, George A.
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Reid, John W.

Exhibition History

1850: Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 1850, no. 114.

1922: Exhibition of Portraits by Early American Artists, The Union League Club, New York, March 1922, no. 22.

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 William S. Mount.

1950: The Face of American History, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, 1950, no. 5.

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. 23 (organized by the Atlanta Art Association).

1952: [Opening exhibition], Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1952, no. cat.

1952: Opening Exhibition of The George Thomas Hunter Gallery of Art, Chattanooga Art Association, Tennessee, 1952, unnumbered.

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.

1955: Famous Americans, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, 1955, no cat.

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

1968: Painter of Rural America: William Sidney Mount, 1807-1868, Natl. Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; City Art Mus. of St. Louis; Whitney Mus. of Am. Art, New York; M. H. de Young Memorial Mus., San Francisco, 1968-1969, repro. on title page (IEF exh.).

1970: Two Centuries of American Portraits, University of Kentucky Art Gallery, Lexington; Paducah Art Gallery, Kentucky; J. B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, 1970, no cat.

Technical Summary

The fine-weight, plain-weave fabric support is unlined and attached to its original four-member, mortise-and-tenon stretcher. On the reverse of the fabric is the manufacturer's stencil, "GEO. [Or E] ROWNEY & Co / MANUFACTURERS / 51, RATHBONE PLACE / LONDON.," and the supplier's stencil, "25-30 / S.N. DODGE'S / ARTIST & PAINTER'S / SUPPLY STORE / 189 Chatham [or] / 61 Oliver St. / N YORK." The grayish-white ground is visible through the thin, widely spaced brushstrokes of the background and garments but not the thicker and more smoothly blended areas of flesh. A small tear on the lapel of the sitter's jacket has been patched on the reverse. In 1956-1957 discolored varnish was removed and the painting was restored. A strip-lining was added in 1995 to reinforce the tacking margins. The background is abraded slightly, and there is slight, selective inpainting there and at the edges. The varnish is thin and has not discolored.

Bibliography

1928: Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke. Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928, unnumbered.

1942: Bolton, Theodore. "Charles Loring Elliott: An Account of His Life and Work" and "A Catalogue of the Portraits Painted by Charles Loring Elliott (1812-1868)." The Art Quarterly 5 (Winter 1942): 92, no. 86.

1944: Richardson, Edgar P. American Romantic Painting. New York, 1944: 33, no. 129, repro.

1952: Rutledge and Lane 1952, 118-119.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 58, repro.

1975: Frankenstein, Alfred. William Sidney Mount. New York, 1975: 15, color pl. 3.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 156, repro.

1986: Zellman, Michael David, comp. American Art Analog. 3 vols. New York, 1986: 1:color repro. 152.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 174, repro.

1996: Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 221-224, color repro.