Overview
Gilbert Stuart achieved fame as a portrait painter in both England and America. When he returned to America from England in 1793, he found himself in a homeland that was foreign to him. Politically, there was now a United States instead of thirteen separate colonies. Artistically, the fashionable style he had adopted for British and Irish sitters was highly inappropriate for Yankee merchants' forthright tastes.
Complaining about the literalness required of him in America, Stuart quipped, "In England my efforts were compared with those of Van Dyck, Titian, and other great painters—here they are compared with the works of the Almighty!" The Almighty had given Catherine Yates a bony face and an appraising character, and that is exactly what Stuart had to portray. Not wishing to waste time posing for an artist, this wife of a New York importer industriously attends to her sewing.
Yet Stuart's brilliant paint manipulation generates a verve few other artists on either side of the Atlantic could have matched. Every passage contains some technical tour de force, employing a variety of thick or thin, opaque or translucent oil paints for the fabrics, needle, thimble, wedding band, flesh, and fingernails. It is little wonder that Mrs. Richard Yates has become one of America's most famous paintings, both as an artistic masterpiece and as a visual symbol of the early republic's rectitude.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 193-196, which is available as a free PDF at https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf
Provenance
The sitter's daughter, Catherine Yates Pollock [c. 1760-1805] and her husband, George Pollock [1762-1820], New York and New Orleans; their son, Carlile Pollock [1791-1845], New Orleans; his daughter, Marie Louise Pollock Chiapella [1828-1902]; possibly to her son, Henry Chiapella [1849-c. 1908]; his niece, Louise Chiapella Formento, New Orleans; sold 1911 to Isaac Monroe Cline [1861-1955] New Orleans;[1] purchased 16 January 1918 by Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[2] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection on 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A.W. Mellon Education and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1940 to NGA.
Exhibition History
- 1922
- Portraits Painted in the United States by Early American Artists, The Union League Club, New York, February 1922, no. 2.
- 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.
- 1938
- Trois Siècles d'Art aux Etats-Unis, Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 1938, no. 165, pl. 4.
- 1939
- Life in America [A Special Loan Exhibition of Paintings Held During the Period of the New York World's Fair], The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1939, no. 53, repro.
- 1944
- Art of the United Nations, Art Institute of Chicago, 1944-1945, p. 46
- 1945
- Old and New England, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1945, no. 60
- 1946
- American Painting from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day, Tate Gallery, London, 1946, no. 207
- 1947
- 40 Masterpieces: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings from American Museums, City Art Museum of St. Louis, 1947, no. 36
- 1950
- Diamond Jubilee Exhibition: Masterpieces of Painting, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950-1951, no. 59
- 1950
- Fifty Paintings by Old Masters, Art Gallery of Toronto, 1950, no. 44
- 1953
- Landmarks in American Art: 1670-1950, Wildenstein and Co., Inc., New York, 1953, no. 7
- 1954
- Painters' Painters, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1954, no. 19
- 1957
- Face of America, The History of Portraiture in the United States, Brooklyn Museum, 1957-1958, no. 25
- 1961
- Treasures in America, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1961, p. 94
- 1963
- Carolina Charter Tercentenary Exhibition, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 1963, no. 32
- 1964
- 200 Years of American Painting, City Art Museum of St. Louis, 1964, p. 6
- 1967
- Gilbert Stuart, Portraitist of the Young Republic 1755-1828, National Gallery of Art; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1967, no. 19
- 1976
- American Art: 1750-1800 Towards Independence, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1976, no. 46
- 1980
- La Pintura de Los Estados Unidos de Museos de la Ciudad de Washington, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1980-1981, no. 5, color repro.
- 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. 28, repro.
Bibliography
- 1867
- Tuckerman 1867, 109.
- 1869
- Dunlap, William. A History of the Rise and Progress of The Arts of Design in the United States. 2 vols. Reprinted in 3. New York, 1969 (1834): 1:196.
- 1922
- Sherman, Frederic Fairchild. "Current Comment: Exhibitions." Art in America 10, no. 3 (April 1922): repro. 141, 144.
- 1924
- Cortissoz, Royal. "The Field of Art." Scribner's Magazine 76 (July 1924): 110-111, repro.
- 1926
- Park 1926, 78, 80, 837, no. 943, repro.
- 1928
- Barker, Virgil. "Portraiture in America Before 1876." The Arts 13, no. 5 (May 1928): 284, repro. 272.
- 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.
- 1932
- Sherman, Frederic Fairchild. Early American Painting. New York and London, 1932: 28, 49, 82, pl. 31.
- 1941
- Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 188, no. 490, as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1942
- Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 249, repro. 10, as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1944
- Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 144, color repro., as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1949
- Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 137, repro., as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1950
- Barker, Virgil. American Painting, History and Interpretation. New York, 1950: 246, pl. 32.
- 1953
- Goodrich, Lloyd. "Landmarks in American Art." Magazine of Art 46, no. 3 (March 1953): l09, cover repro.
- 1956
- Richardson, Edgar P. Painting in America: The Story of 450 Years. New York, 1956: 98.
- 1959
- Bouton, Margaret. American Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number One in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 20, color repro., as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1963
- Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 228, repro., as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1964
- Mount 1964, 169-170, 177, 184-185, 377.
- 1966
- Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:382, color repro., as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1969
- Novak, Barbara. American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience. New York, 1969: 35, 36, repro. 34. (2nd ed. New York, 1997: 34, 35, fig. 1.19; 3rd ed. Oxford, 2007: 16, fig. 1.6.)
- 1970
- American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 108, repro.
- 1973
- Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 127, 128 repro.
- 1975
- Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 384-385, color repro.
- 1979
- Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 96, pl. 84.
- 1980
- American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 238, repro., as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1980
- Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 9, 13, no. 7, color repro.
- 1981
- Dinnerstein, Lois. "The Industrious Housewife: Some Images of Labor in American Art." Arts 55, no. 8 (April 1981): 113, 115, fig. 3.
- 1981
- Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: color repro. 51, detail 65, 66.
- 1984
- Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 380, no. 538, color repro.
- 1986
- McLanathan 1986, 79, color repro. 80.
- 1988
- Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 60-61, no. 7, color repro., as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1992
- American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 348, repro., as Mrs. Richard Yates.
- 1992
- National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1992: 219, repro.
- 1994
- Craven, Wayne. American Art: History and Culture. New York, 1994: 142, color fig. 10.7.
- 1995
- Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 193-196, repro. 195, color frontispiece.
- 2001
- Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA II: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. Chicago, 2001: 78-79, 210, color repro.
- 2004
- Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 292-293, no. 238, color repro.