The Ragan Sisters, 1818

Provenance

Mary Ragan's daughter, Mary (Mollie) Ragan Macgill [Mrs. Henry Rosenberg, 1839-1917], Galveston, Texas; bequeathed to her nephew, Dr. Cooper R. Drewry, Catonsville, Maryland; upon his death to his wife, Mrs. Cooper R. Drewry[1], Baltimore; gift 1959 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1950

Behold the Child, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1950, unnumbered.

1960

American Painters of the South, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1960, no. 48.

1960

Faces of America, Inaugural Exhibition, El Paso Museum of Art, Texas, 1960-1961, no cat.

1970

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

1972

Sesquicentennial Exhibition, Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville, Florida, 1972, no. 6.

Technical Summary

The support is a fine, plain-weave fabric that was lined in 1946 and relined in 1960. An off-white ground was applied thinly, but with a certain amount of activity in the brushstrokes. Paint was also applied relatively thinly, with edges abutting rather than overlapping; however, there is low impasto in the whites and evidence of brushstroking. Infrared reflectography reveals rather complete drawing defining the hands, the ribbons on the hats, and the edges of the dresses and indicated changes in the lengths of the sleeves. Photographs taken prior to the 1946 and 1960 treatments reveal extensive paint loss and flaking of the paint layer. Many of the losses have been inpainted, and the inpainting has reinterpreted the folds in the curtain and the clouds in the sky.

Bibliography

1960

Milley, John Calvin. "Jacob Eichholtz, 1776-1842." Master's thesis, University of Delaware, 1960: no. 53, 379.

1969

Beal, Rebecca J. Jacob Eichholtz, 1776-1842. Philadelphia, 1969: no. 692, 199-200.

1970

American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 56, repro.

1980

American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 155, repro.

1980

Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: no. 13, color repro.

1988

Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 74, no. 14, color repro.

1992

American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 173, 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: 204-207, color repro.

2003

The Worlds of Jacob Eichholtz, Portrait Painter of the Early Republic. Exh. cat. Lancaster County History Society, Pennsylvania (plus two other simultaneous venues), 2003: 72-73, fig. 4.10.

2013

Smith, Roberta. "Curator, Tear Down These Walls." New York Times 162, no. 56,036 (February 3, 2013): AR-23, color repro.

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