Portrait of an Officer

c. 1702/1730

Enoch Seeman

Painter, British, born Poland, 1694 - 1744/1745

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 127.6 x 102.2 cm (50 1/4 x 40 1/4 in.)
    framed: 150.8 x 125.7 x 5 cm (59 3/8 x 49 1/2 x 1 15/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1947.17.26

Media for this artwork is unavailable and the object is not on view. See artworks now on view

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Rose M. [Mrs. Augustus] de Forest, New York); sold 20 November 1929 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York, as a portrait of Sir William Gooch by Charles Bridges;[1] sold by Clarke's executors to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), from whom it was purchased 29 January 1936, as part of the Clarke collection, by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift to NGA, 1947.
[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 the supposed sitter's son supplied by the dealer, de Forest, is generally regarded as untenable. H. M. Bland, quoted by William P. Campbell in a memorandum of 5 March 1964 in NGA curatorial files, recalled being informed by a minor New York dealer that he had brought "this picture of a nobody over from England, sold it to De Forest, and in a few weeks, who would have believed, it is now known as a famous Governor called Gooch and the artist is called Bridges."

Associated Names

Bibliography

1930

  • Weddell, Alexander Wilbourne, ed. Virginia Historical Portraiture 1585-1830. Richmond, 1930: 168, repro. 167.

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 172, repro., as by European of Unknown Nationality.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 306, as by Unknown [Formerly Considered American].

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 409, repro., as by 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: 248-250, repro. 249.

Inscriptions

on strainer replacing original stretcher in brown ink: Leut. Govnr: William Gooch

Wikidata ID

Q20177740

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