Portrait of a Lady
c. 1705/1710
Painter
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 103.8 x 76.5 cm (40 7/8 x 30 1/8 in.)
framed: 117.5 x 89.9 x 5.7 cm (46 1/4 x 35 3/8 x 2 1/4 in.) -
Accession
1947.17.27
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
(Rose M. de Forest, New York); sold 30 April 1923 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York, as a portrait of Anne Brown Hamilton 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). No provenance, save that the portrait was purchased from the descendants of the sitter, was provided by the dealer, de Forest. However, the identification of the sitter given by de Forest was based upon an inscription now considered to be spurious, and has been generally rejected, thus casting doubt on de Forest's claim of purchase from the sitter's descendants. See William P. Campbell, memorandum of 22 June 1965, and an undated note by William Sawitsky, both in NGA curatorial files.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1924
Exhibition of the Earliest Known Portraits of Americans by Painters of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, The Union League Club, New York, March 1924, no. 19, as Anne Brown Hamilton by Charles Bridges.
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 Anne Brown Hamilton by Charles Bridges.
Bibliography
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: 306, as Unknown [Formerly Considered American].
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 409, 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: 295-296, repro. 295.
Inscriptions
falsely inscribed, on stretcher in ink: Ann Brown Hamilton showing / Effigie of Andrew her husband / Charles Bridges
Wikidata ID
Q20177745