This dashing young captain was to become one of America's most famous naval commanders. In the summer of 1813, Charles Stewart took command of the Constitution. That frigate already had acquired her nickname of "Old Ironsides" when, during the War of 1812, a British cannonball had bounced off her sturdy oak hull. Since in their respectively long careers, neither ship nor man ever lost a battle, "Old Ironsides" came to identify both.
Portrayed at age thirty-three, the captain reveals his years of active duty by his vigorous stance, feet braced apart as though planted on a rolling deck—an assertive, even swaggering, posture most unexpected in a formal portrait. His thumb aggressively presses down upon the desk's naval charts, and a world globe emerges beneath the tablecloth. The white, lower half of Stewart's uniform stands out against the shaded room, while a shaft of sunshine on the upper wall silhouettes his dark, navy coat and cocked elbow.
Captain Charles Stewart was Thomas Sully's second full-length portrait. Sully had emigrated from England to the United States when he was nine. Gilbert Stuart graciously allowed the young painter to observe him at work. Establishing himself as a Philadelphia portraitist, Sully saved enough money to spend nine months studying art in London in 1810.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II, pages 139-143, which is available as a free PDF (21MB).