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Shown from the hips up, a light-skinned woman with deeply flushed cheeks sits in an armchair, looking at us from under raised and pointed eyebrows in this vertical portrait painting. Her body is angled to our right but she turns to look at us with dark eyes lined with a few wrinkles. She has a long, pointed nose, slightly sagging jowls, and her thin, pale pink lips are pressed together in a line. Ringlets of chestnut-brown hair curl onto her forehead from under a frilly white bonnet that frames her face. The bonnet is tied with a wide, white ribbon around the top. The woman’s beet-red gown is cut low but her chest is covered with opaque white fabric that reaches to the frilled collar high on her neck. A sheer white shawl decorated with a pattern of scrolling, stylized leaves and vines drapes across her shoulders. Her right hand, closer to us, rests in her lap. The chair fills the width of the painting, and the woman almost fills the height. The arm of the chair is edged in wood, and the upholstery is patterned with mustard yellow, harvest gold, and tawny brown. The background lightens from dark brown in the upper left corner to tan in the lower right.

Gilbert Stuart

Abigail Smith Adams (Mrs. John Adams), 1800/1815

West Building, Ground Floor - Gallery 42B

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 73.4 x 59.7 cm (28 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.)

framed: 97.5 x 84.8 x 10.8 cm (38 3/8 x 33 3/8 x 4 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. Robert Homans

Accession Number

1954.7.2

Artists / Makers

Gilbert Stuart (painter) American, 1755 - 1828

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Overview

Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 214-216, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf

Provenance

John Quincy Adams [1767-1848], Quincy, Massachusetts; his son, Charles Francis Adams [1807-1886], Boston, Massachusetts; his son, Brooks Adams [1848-1927], Boston, Massachusetts; his niece, Abigail Adams Homans [Mrs. Robert Homans, 1879-1974];[1] gift 1954 to NGA.

[1] For Mrs. Homans' dates see The New York Times Biographical Service, 24 vols. (and continuing), New York, 1969-, 5:222.

Associated Names

Adams, Brooks
Adams, Charles Francis
Adams, John Quincy
Homans, Robert, Mrs.

Exhibition History

1880: Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1880, no. 305

1889: Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of George Washington-Loan Exhibition of Historical Portraits and Relics, Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 1889, no. 57

1914: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1914, 1921, 1923, 1931 (on loan)

1950: Makers of History in Washington, 1800-1950, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1950, no. 6

1951: They Gave Us Freedom, Colonial Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1951, no. 65

1967: Gilbert Sturat, Portraitist of the Young Republic, 1755-1828, National Gallery of Art; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1967, no. 42

1969: A Nineteenth-Century Gallery of Distinguished Americans, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, 1969, no. 12

1975: Extended loan for use by The White House, Washington, D.C., 1975, 1976.

1976: Remember the Ladies: Women in America 1715-1815, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; The Chicago Historical Society; Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Library, Austin; New York Historical Society, 1976-1977, no. 269

1984: Woman, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, 1984, no. 6

2002: Fathers and Sons: Two Families - Four Presidents, George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, College Station, Texas, 2002, no cat.

2004: Gilbert Stuart, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art (for the National Portrait Gallery), Washington, D.C., 2004-2005, no. 58, repro.

Bibliography

1879: Mason, George C. The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1879: 125-126.

1880: "Portraits Painted by Stuart...taken from Mason's Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart." In Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1880: 28, no. 4.

1892: Bowen, Clarence W., ed. The History of the Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of George Washington. New York, 1892: 144, repro. opp. 260, 426.

1926: Park 1926, 93, no. 7, repro.

1967: Oliver, Andrew. Portraits of John and Abigail Adams. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967: 132-140, fig. 66, 251, no. 105.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 102, repro., as Mrs. John Adams.

1975: Van Devanter, Ann. "The Signers' Ladies." Antiques 108, no. 1 (July 1975): 120, color repro. 116.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 387, color repro.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 227, repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 67, repro. 70.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 383, no. 543, color repro., as Mrs. John Adams.

1986: McLanathan 1986, 112, color repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 356, repro.

1995: Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 214-216, color repro. 215.

2013: Evans, Dorinda. Gilbert Stuart and the Impact of Manic Depression. Burlington, 2013: 68-69, fig. 37.