John Beale Bordley

1770

Charles Willson Peale

Painter, American, 1741 - 1827

A middle-aged, light-skinned man stands facing and looking at us, leaning on one arm propped on a tall rock in a landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The man looks out with dark blue eyes under curved black brows. He has a prominent nose, his full apricot-colored lips are closed, and there is a shadow of a beard on his smooth cheeks. He has a receding hairline, and his wavy, ash-gray hair curls around his high, white collar. The man wears a tawny-brown topcoat with white, ruffled cuffs at his wrists, and a long brown vest with fabric-covered buttons. He wears matching brown, knee-length pantaloons with white stockings, and black shoes with gold buckles. His feet are widely planted as he leans on the tall rock on his left elbow, to our right. His elbow rests on an open book on the tall, narrow rock, shaped like a podium. Writing visible in the thick book reads, “Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari.” He points with his other index finger to our right. Behind the man and to our right is a gray, stone statue of a woman wearing flowing robes. She holds a pair of scales in one hand a tall staff with a bell-like form at the top in the other elbow. The statue is angled toward the man, and the tall base on which she stands is carved with the words, “Co LEX ANGLI.” A tree with sickle-shaped leaves and peach-colored fruit spans the height of the composition behind the statue. Near the lower left corner of the composition, two halves of a piece of paper, torn from corner to corner, lies on the ground with the edges curling up. The writing on the paper reads, “Imperial Civil Law — Sumary proceeding.” A thick tree trunk curves in a shallow S shape up along the left edge of the canvas, behind the man. Fern-green jimson weed, clover, small flowers, and rocks carpet the ground beneath and around the man. In the distance, to our left, a man wearing a red coat, a tricorn hat, and holding a musket leads a mule carrying a pack, while sheep graze to our right. Pockets of azure-blue sky are visible beyond gray clouds to our left and fluffy, flaxen-yellow clouds to our right.

Media Options

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John Beale Bordley, a close friend of Charles Willson Peale, raised the funds in 1766 to send the young artist to London, where Peale trained under Benjamin West's tutelage. In the stormy years before the American Revolution, Bordley was a Maryland planter, judge, and member of the Governor's Council. A fervent republican, he gave Peale his first major commission -- for life-size, symbolic portraits that were to be exhibited in London as declarations of colonial opposition.

The portrait addresses two political issues: America's agricultural self-sufficiency, and her fair treatment. The first of these concepts is referred to in the background, which depicts Bordley's plantation on Wye Island in the Chesapeake Bay. A peach tree and a packhorse signify America's abundance, while the grazing sheep speak for freedom from imported, British woolens. The theme of tyranny dominates the foreground. Bordley, trained as a lawyer, assumes an attitude of debate, raising his hand in a gesture of argumentation. He points to a statue of British Liberty holding the scales of justice, reminding English viewers that the colonists lived under British law and, thus, were entitled to the rights it guaranteed. That Britain had violated these rights is signified by the legal document, torn and discarded at Bordley's feet. A poisonous plant at the statue's base -- the native American jimson weed -- warns of the deadly consequences of any attack on American civil liberties.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 113-117, which is available as a free PDF at https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 62

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of The Barra Foundation, Inc.

  • Dimensions

    overall: 200.8 x 147.4 cm (79 1/16 x 58 1/16 in.)
    framed: 215 x 161.6 x 7.6 cm (84 5/8 x 63 5/8 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1984.2.1

More About this Artwork

A middle-aged, light-skinned man stands facing and looking at us, leaning on one arm propped on a tall rock in a landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The man looks out with dark blue eyes under curved black brows. He has a prominent nose, his full apricot-colored lips are closed, and there is a shadow of a beard on his smooth cheeks. He has a receding hairline, and his wavy, ash-gray hair curls around his high, white collar. The man wears a tawny-brown topcoat with white, ruffled cuffs at his wrists, and a long brown vest with fabric-covered buttons. He wears matching brown, knee-length pantaloons with white stockings, and black shoes with gold buckles. His feet are widely planted as he leans on the tall rock on his left elbow, to our right. His elbow rests on an open book on the tall, narrow rock, shaped like a podium. Writing visible in the thick book reads, “Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari.” He points with his other index finger to our right. Behind the man and to our right is a gray, stone statue of a woman wearing flowing robes. She holds a pair of scales in one hand a tall staff with a bell-like form at the top in the other elbow. The statue is angled toward the man, and the tall base on which she stands is carved with the words, “Co LEX ANGLI.” A tree with sickle-shaped leaves and peach-colored fruit spans the height of the composition behind the statue. Near the lower left corner of the composition, two halves of a piece of paper, torn from corner to corner, lies on the ground with the edges curling up. The writing on the paper reads, “Imperial Civil Law — Sumary proceeding.” A thick tree trunk curves in a shallow S shape up along the left edge of the canvas, behind the man. Fern-green jimson weed, clover, small flowers, and rocks carpet the ground beneath and around the man. In the distance, to our left, a man wearing a red coat, a tricorn hat, and holding a musket leads a mule carrying a pack, while sheep graze to our right. Pockets of azure-blue sky are visible beyond gray clouds to our left and fluffy, flaxen-yellow clouds to our right.

Interactive Article:  Art up Close: John Beale Bordley’s Revolutionary Portrait

The origins of the Revolutionary War can be found in the details of Charles Willson Peale’s early American portrait.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Edmund Jenings [1731-1819], London, the sitter's half-brother. L. LeRoy Highbaugh, Sr. [1889-1965], and L. LeRoy Highbaugh, Jr. [b. 1928], Louisville, Kentucky; gift of Mr. and Mrs. LeRoy Highbaugh, Jr., to The Stetson University, Deland and St. Petersburg, Florida, 1973.[1] (Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1973);[2] purchased 1974 by the Barra Foundation, Inc., Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania;[3] gift 1984 to NGA.
[1] Bruce Jacob, dean of The Stetson University College of Law, stated in a telephone interview on 14 August 1989 that L. LeRoy Highbaugh Sr. found the portrait in a house in Louisville and donated it to the law college in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Jacob said he learned this from the late Ollie Edmunds, president of the university at the time. According to the document titled "Gift From L. LeRoy Highbaugh Jr., Dorothy L. Highbaugh to John B. Stetson University" in NGA curatorial files, the transfer of ownership took place in 1973.
[2] Letter from Russell E. Burke III, senior vice president, Kennedy Galleries, New York, 29 March 1984, in NGA curatorial file.
[3] Letter from Gail H. Fahmer, program officer, The Barra Foundation, Inc., 19 March 1984, in NGA curatorial file.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1962

  • Art in Florida Public Collections, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, 1962, as Portrait of a Lawyer by Joseph Badger.

1965

  • Inaugural Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1965, no. 3, as Portrait of an Unidentified Lawyer by Charles Willson Peale.

1971

  • Philadelphia Painting and Printing to 1776, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1971, no. 24.

1974

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1974-1984

1982

  • Charles Willson Peale and His World, National Portrait Gallery, Washington; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982-1983, no. 5.

1996

  • The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy 1770-1870, Philadelphia Museum of Art; M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1996-1997, fig. 27 (not in checklist; shown only in Philadelphia).

Bibliography

1952

  • Sellers, Charles Coleman. Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale. Philadelphia, 1952: 36-37, no. 61 (unlocated).

1962

  • Art in Florida Public Collections. Exh. cat. John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, 1962: as Portrait of a Lawyer by Joseph Badger.

1965

  • Inaugural Exhibition. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1965: no. 3, as Portrait of an Unidentified Lawyer by Charles Willson Peale.

1969

  • Sellers, Charles Coleman. "The Jimson Weed Warning: Charles Willson Peale and John Beale Bordley." Pharos 7, nos. 2 and 3 (Summer-Fall 1969): 20-25, repro., cover.

  • Sellers, Charles Coleman. Charles Willson Peale With Patron and Populace. Philadelphia, 1969: 55-56, cat. SP8, fig. 2.

  • Sellers, Charles Coleman. Charles Willson Peale. New York, 1969: 81-86, fig. 22.

1971

  • Philadelphia Painting and Printing to 1776. Exh. cat. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1971: no. 24.

1983

  • Miller, Lillian B., et al., eds. The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family. 5 vols. New Haven and London, 1983-2000: 1(1983):88, 92-98, 103.

  • Richardson, Edgar P., "Charles Willson Peale and His World," In Richardson, Hindle, and Miller 1983 (see artist's biography): 38, 40, 43, 244, 39, pl. 5, and 177-179, 280.

1985

  • Hart, Sidney. "A Graphic Case of Transatlantic Republicanism." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 109, no. 2 (April 1985): 203-213, fig. 2. Reprinted in Miller and Ward 1991.

1988

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 64, repro.

1991

  • Miller, Lillian B. and David C. Ward, eds. Perspectives on Charles Willson Peale. Pittsburgh, 1991: 145-165, fig. 5.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 254, repro.

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 209, repro.

  • Lawson, Karol Ann Peard. "Charles Willson Peale's John Dickinson: An American Landscape as Political Allegory." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 136, no. 4 (December 1992): 460, 462 (fig. 4), 463, 484-485.

1995

  • Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 113-117, color repro. 115.

Inscriptions

along top right corner of rock in right foreground: Peale / land / 70

Wikidata ID

Q20178432

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