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Gilbert Stuart

Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) was an influential American portrait painter, best known for his masterful depictions of George Washington and other Founding Fathers, which captured the essence of the early republic's leaders with vivid realism and psychological insight.^[1] Born on December 3, 1755, in Saunderstown, North Kingstown, Rhode Island Colony, Stuart demonstrated early artistic talent near Newport and briefly apprenticed under Scottish painter Cosmo Alexander before traveling to London in 1775.^[2] There, he studied under Benjamin West from 1777 to 1787, mastering the English grand manner style that emphasized elegance, affluence, and subtle characterization in portraiture.^[1] After achieving acclaim in London with works like Captain John Gell (1785), he moved to Dublin in 1787, where he painted prominent Irish figures until financial difficulties prompted his return to the United States in 1793.^[1] Settling first in New York and then Philadelphia in 1795, Stuart gained his greatest fame through three sittings with George Washington in 1795 and 1796, producing multiple versions including the unfinished Athenaeum Portrait (1796), which served as the model for the president's image on the one-dollar bill.^[2] Over his career, he portrayed the first six U.S. presidents—Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams—as well as their spouses and key figures like Thomas Mifflin and Horatio Gates, amassing more than 1,100 portraits that defined Federal-era American art.^[3]^[1] Despite his success, Stuart was notoriously money-minded and erratic, often leaving commissions incomplete and struggling with debts that led to his death on July 9, 1828, in Boston, where he had relocated in 1805.^[2] His legacy endures as America's preeminent portraitist of the revolutionary generation, blending British techniques with a uniquely insightful American sensibility.^[1]

Early Life and Education

Birth and Family Background

Gilbert Stuart was born on December 3, 1755, in Saunderstown, a village in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, then part of the British colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.^[2] He was the youngest of three children of Gilbert Stuart Sr., a Scottish immigrant who had arrived in America around 1730, and Elizabeth Anthony Stuart, a member of a prominent Rhode Island family with roots in the region.^[4]^[5] The family home was a modest structure above his father's snuff mill, one of the first such enterprises in the American colonies, where the elder Stuart ground and processed tobacco into snuff for local trade.^[6]^[4] The Stuart family's circumstances were shaped by modest colonial entrepreneurship and the challenges of immigrant life in mid-18th-century New England. Gilbert Sr.'s ventures in milling and trade provided a stable but unremarkable livelihood, reflecting the era's reliance on small-scale manufacturing in rural Rhode Island.^[5] Elizabeth Anthony brought connections to established local networks through her family's landholdings and social standing, which offered a degree of community influence despite the household's economic constraints.^[2] In 1761, when young Gilbert was six years old, financial difficulties prompted the family to relocate to Newport, Rhode Island, a bustling port city known for its mercantile activity and cultural vibrancy, where his parents operated a small retail shop.^[4]^[6] This move to Newport exposed the young Stuart to a richer artistic environment amid the colonial city's growing prosperity and intellectual circles. Local influences, including itinerant artists and the port's exposure to European prints and goods, likely sparked his early fascination with visual arts, fostering an innate talent for observation and depiction.^[7] From childhood, Stuart demonstrated a precocious interest in drawing, sketching faces and scenes with a self-taught proficiency that hinted at his future profession, often using simple materials available in the household.^[4]^[6] These formative years in Rhode Island's coastal communities laid the groundwork for his artistic development, though formal training would soon follow under the guidance of a visiting painter.^[5]

Apprenticeship and Initial Training

At the age of fourteen, in 1769, Gilbert Stuart began his formal artistic apprenticeship under the Scottish portrait painter Cosmo Alexander in Newport, Rhode Island.^[6]^[2] Alexander, who had arrived in the American colonies as an itinerant artist, accepted Stuart as an apprentice at the recommendation of a local physician impressed by the boy's natural talent for drawing.^[8] This arrangement marked the start of Stuart's structured training in portraiture, as the two collaborated on painting tours through colonial cities including Philadelphia, New York, and southern locales such as Williamsburg.^[9]^[2] Alexander's mentorship profoundly shaped Stuart's early artistic development, instilling foundational portrait techniques such as capturing likenesses through careful observation and composition, influenced by the master's blend of classicist structure and rococo elegance.^[2]^[10] While Stuart's later neoclassical leanings emerged more fully in Europe, Alexander's European training exposed him to refined approaches to form and color that laid the groundwork for his lifelong focus on expressive portraiture.^[9] During the apprenticeship, Stuart produced his first known painting, Dr. Hunter's Dogs (c. 1769), a still-life work demonstrating his initial command of brushwork and detail under Alexander's guidance.^[6]^[4] In 1772, following travels to Scotland where Alexander sought commissions, the mentor died suddenly in Edinburgh, leaving the seventeen-year-old Stuart stranded abroad.^[9]^[11] With limited resources and no immediate family support across the Atlantic, Stuart endured hardships before securing passage back to Newport in late 1773.^[2] Upon his return, he embarked on a brief period of independent work in Rhode Island, creating early portraits of local merchants and families, such as the Banister portraits (c. 1773–1774), which reflect the nascent style honed during his apprenticeship.^[12]^[9] This phase allowed Stuart to establish himself locally amid the disruptions of the approaching Revolutionary War, building on Alexander's teachings to secure modest commissions.^[2]

Career in Europe

London Period

Gilbert Stuart arrived in London in 1775, seeking advanced training after his early apprenticeship in America under Cosmo Alexander. With limited funds and connections, he approached Benjamin West, a prominent American-born painter and history artist based in London, who accepted him as an assistant and pupil in his studio at 14 Newman Street.^[13]^[14] West, known for his innovative historical paintings and leadership in the Royal Academy, provided Stuart with crucial guidance in European techniques, building on his foundational skills from Newport.^[1] Under West's influence, Stuart quickly adapted to the sophisticated demands of British portraiture, achieving rapid professional success by the early 1780s. His breakthrough came with the 1782 full-length portrait The Skater (Sir William Grant), exhibited at the Royal Academy, which showcased his ability to capture aristocratic poise and earned widespread acclaim among London's elite patrons.^[15]^[14] This work, depicting the Canadian-born lawyer gliding effortlessly on ice, exemplified Stuart's growing reputation for portraying members of the British aristocracy with elegance and vitality. He soon received commissions for similar grand-scale portraits, such as Captain John Gell (1785), further solidifying his status among top British painters.^[16] Stuart adopted West's grand manner style, blending historical painting principles with portraiture to emphasize dramatic lighting, rich textures, and psychological depth that revealed his subjects' character and social standing. This approach, inspired by West's dramatic compositions and the English tradition of Reynolds and Gainsborough, allowed Stuart to infuse his works with a sense of grandeur and introspection, moving beyond mere likeness to convey intellectual and emotional nuance.^[1]^[9] Despite his rising fame and lucrative commissions, Stuart's chronic mismanagement of finances led to mounting debts and earlier imprisonments for debt, forcing him to flee the city in 1787. This financial collapse, exacerbated by his extravagant lifestyle and irregular payment habits, marked the end of his London phase.^[13]^[6]

Dublin and Irish Connections

In the autumn of 1787, Gilbert Stuart relocated to Dublin, Ireland, fleeing the mounting debts that had plagued his London career.^[17] This move, prompted by financial pressures, was facilitated by an invitation to paint the portrait of the Lord Lieutenant, Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland, which quickly established his reputation among Irish elites.^[17] During his residence in Dublin from 1787 to 1793, Stuart secured numerous commissions from the Irish nobility and political figures, capitalizing on limited competition in the local art scene. Notable works from this period include portraits of John Browne, 2nd Earl of Altamont (c. 1788–1790), and the politician Henry Grattan (c. 1790), now in the National Gallery of Ireland, as well as John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare and Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1789), held by the Cleveland Museum of Art.^[18]^[19] These commissions depicted sitters in opulent settings, reflecting their status while showcasing Stuart's skill in capturing expressive features and regal poise. Amid ongoing financial troubles—leading to his own imprisonment for debt in Dublin's Marshalsea Prison in 1789—Stuart refined his portraiture techniques, particularly in flesh-toning, where he achieved luminous skin effects through layered applications of lead white, vermilion, and lake pigments blended for subtle gradations.^[20] He incorporated vibrant colors and a more intimate scale in some compositions, moving toward a mature style that emphasized psychological depth over mere formality, as seen in the conversational warmth of his depiction of Grattan.^[18] This productive Irish phase, despite personal hardships, built Stuart's international acclaim and network of patrons, providing the momentum for his return to America in 1793.^[17]

American Career

New York and Philadelphia Phases

After eighteen years abroad, Gilbert Stuart returned to the United States, arriving in New York City in May 1793 with his family after departing Dublin to escape mounting debts.^[2] He quickly established a studio and secured commissions from prominent figures, including portraits of General Horatio Gates, Aaron Burr, and Chief Justice John Jay, whose endorsement provided an introduction to President George Washington.^[2] Stuart's European-honed grand manner of portraiture, characterized by dramatic lighting and psychological depth, appealed to New York's emerging elite, allowing him to build a reputation amid limited competition from other artists.^[1] In November 1794, Stuart relocated to Philadelphia, then the nation's capital, seeking greater opportunities among the political and social leaders of the young republic.^[21] His studio there became a hub for the Federalist aristocracy, with steady demand from merchants, diplomats, and officials eager for likenesses that conveyed authority and refinement.^[6] Stuart often worked from life sittings but produced replicas and variations to meet the influx of requests, including over 130 copies of his Washington portraits alone, which he sold at premium prices to fund his operations.^[2] A pinnacle of this period was Stuart's commission for the full-length Lansdowne Portrait of George Washington, painted in 1796 and presented by Philadelphia socialite Anne Willing Bingham to British statesman William Petty, the Marquess of Lansdowne, as a symbol of American goodwill.^[21] Washington sat for Stuart three times between 1795 and 1796, enduring the artist's probing gaze to capture the president's dignified resolve against a neoclassical backdrop evoking republican virtues.^[22] During these Philadelphia years, Stuart also obtained sittings from other Founding Fathers, including Vice President John Adams in the late 1790s, producing bust-length portraits that highlighted their intellectual intensity and contributed to the iconography of early American leadership.^[6] The era's political turbulence, including the Quasi-War with France, only heightened the elite's desire for such commemorative works, solidifying Stuart's status as the preeminent portraitist of the 1790s.^[1]

Boston Residency

In 1805, Gilbert Stuart relocated from Washington, D.C., to Boston, where he established a studio on Devonshire Street and spent the remainder of his career. This move marked a return to his native New England roots after years of itinerant work in Philadelphia and the nation's capital, allowing him to focus on a steady stream of commissions from prominent local and national figures.^[2]^[23] During his Boston years, Stuart produced several significant presidential portraits, capturing the likenesses of key Founding Fathers in their later lives, including Thomas Jefferson in 1805. In 1805, shortly after arriving, he painted John Adams from life in nearby Quincy, Massachusetts, depicting the former president in a three-quarter-length pose that emphasized his intellectual gravitas and statesmanlike demeanor; this work, now in the National Gallery of Art, exemplifies Stuart's mature style with its fluid brushwork and psychological depth.^[24]^[1]^[25] Over a decade later, in 1818, Stuart created a portrait of James Madison, portraying the fourth president seated with a composed expression and subtle modeling of light on his face, highlighting Madison's reserved yet authoritative presence; this oil on canvas further solidified Stuart's reputation for rendering the nuanced character of American leaders.^[26]^[1] He also painted James Monroe around 1817–1822 and John Quincy Adams in 1818 during this period.^[27]^[28] A cornerstone of Stuart's productivity in Boston was his ongoing replication of George Washington's portrait, drawn from memory of the three sittings the president granted him in Philadelphia in 1795 and 1796. He produced dozens of versions of the so-called Athenaeum type, an unfinished head study emphasizing Washington's stern gaze and powdered hair, with the iconic example—the original unfinished canvas—acquired by the Boston Athenaeum after his death. These replicas, often priced at $100 each, became highly sought after and contributed substantially to Stuart's output, with estimates suggesting up to 60 variations completed during his later years.^[29]^[2] Stuart's health began to decline in the mid-1820s, culminating in a stroke in 1824 that left him partially paralyzed on his right side, yet he persisted in painting with his left hand for several more years. Confined to bed for extended periods due to recurring illnesses, he nonetheless maintained his studio until his final days. On July 9, 1828, Stuart died in Boston at the age of 72, succumbing to complications from his stroke; he was buried in an unmarked grave in Boston Common.^[1]^[23]^[2]

Personal Life and Challenges

Family and Relationships

Gilbert Stuart married Charlotte Coates, the sister of Royal Navy surgeon Dr. William Coates, on May 10, 1786, in London, despite disapproval from her family over his extravagant habits.^[30] The couple shared interests in music, with Charlotte known for her singing voice, and she provided emotional support that Stuart described as relieving him from the cares of daily life.^[2] Their union accompanied Stuart's professional ups and downs, as the family navigated his frequent relocations across Europe and America. The Stuarts had twelve children—five sons and seven daughters—though seven predeceased their father, leaving five survivors at the time of his death in 1828.^[30]^[2] Among them, their eldest son, Charles Gilbert Stuart (1787–1813), followed in his father's footsteps as a painter, assisting in the family studio before succumbing to tuberculosis at age twenty-six.^[30] Another child, daughter Jane Stuart (1812–1888), also contributed to the studio by copying her father's works later in life.^[30] The high infant and child mortality reflected the era's challenges, yet the surviving children remained closely tied to Stuart's artistic world. As Stuart's career demanded mobility, his family relocated repeatedly to support his pursuits, moving from London to Dublin in 1787 amid his debts, then to New York in 1793 upon his return to America, Philadelphia by 1795, Washington, D.C., in 1803, and finally settling in Boston in 1805, where they stayed for the remainder of his life.^[30]^[2] These shifts underscored the family's adaptability, enabling Stuart's nomadic professional path while testing their stability. Charlotte played a central role in maintaining the household during these transitions and Stuart's ongoing financial troubles, managing domestic affairs as he traveled for commissions and faced creditors.^[30] After Stuart's death, she and their four surviving daughters received aid from a benefit exhibition organized by the Boston Athenaeum, highlighting her enduring management of family resources until her own death in 1845.^[30]

Financial Difficulties and Death

Gilbert Stuart's financial troubles began during his time in Europe and persisted throughout his life, stemming from an extravagant lifestyle and ineffective financial management. In London, where he resided from 1775 to 1787, Stuart accumulated significant debts due to his lavish spending habits, ultimately forcing him to flee to Dublin to avoid creditors.^[31] During his six years in Ireland, these issues worsened; he was briefly imprisoned in a debtor's prison in 1790 amid mounting obligations, despite earning from portrait commissions.^[32] Upon returning to America in 1793, Stuart hoped to rebuild his finances through high-profile portrait work, but his patterns of overcommitment continued. He frequently accepted commissions without completing them, leaving many works unfinished and clients dissatisfied, which strained his income and reputation.^[9] In the United States, debts led to legal entanglements, including a notable 1802 lawsuit in the District Court of Pennsylvania against Captain John Sword for producing and selling unauthorized copies of Stuart's George Washington portrait; Stuart prevailed, securing an injunction to protect his earnings from such replicas, which he priced at $100 for replicas of the portrait.^[31] Despite a thriving practice in New York, Philadelphia, and later Boston, his poor business acumen—marked by impulsive expenditures and failure to deliver on promises—prevented financial stability.^[33] In his final years in Boston, starting around 1805, Stuart's health declined amid ongoing economic woes, exacerbated by gout that severely limited his productivity. By 1824, a stroke further impaired him, yet he persisted in painting until gout complications settled in his chest and stomach in the spring of 1828, confining him for three months with intense suffering and accumulating unpaid bills.^[9]^[2] He died on July 9, 1828, at age 72, leaving his family in dire poverty and deeply in debt; his studio contents were auctioned shortly after to address creditors, while his initial burial was in an unmarked grave due to lack of funds.^[9]^[33] His daughter Jane later supported the family through her own artistry, and a memorial exhibition at the Boston Athenaeum in 1828 aimed to alleviate their hardship, though recovery took years.^[9]

Artistic Style and Techniques

Portraiture Approach

Gilbert Stuart's portraiture approach emphasized psychological depth and technical precision to capture the authentic character of his subjects, drawing from his training under Benjamin West in London, where he mastered the English grand manner style.^[1] He prioritized honest representations over flattery, aiming to reveal the sitter's true personality through insightful and definitive likenesses rather than idealized depictions.^[1] Stuart frequently employed three-quarter view poses combined with a direct gaze to engage viewers and convey the subject's inner character effectively.^[1] This compositional choice allowed him to highlight facial expressions and subtle nuances that suggested psychological insight.^[1] In his technique, Stuart contrasted loose, fluid brushwork for clothing and backgrounds—which added a sense of vitality and movement—with highly precise rendering of facial features to ensure lifelike accuracy.^[1] This deliberate differentiation focused attention on the subject's countenance, enhancing the portrait's realism and emotional resonance.^[1] To facilitate natural expressions, Stuart conducted painting sessions filled with conversation and light-hearted jokes, which helped relax sitters and draw out their genuine personalities.^[1] This interactive method contributed to his reputation for producing portraits that felt animated and true to life, avoiding the stiffness often seen in formal commissions.^[1]

Innovations in Painting

Gilbert Stuart developed a distinctive flesh palette primarily composed of lead white, vermilion, and lake pigments, which allowed him to achieve luminous and realistic skin tones in his portraits.^[34] This combination provided a balanced mix of opacity from the lead white, warm reds from vermilion, and translucent depth from the lake, enabling subtle variations in complexion without relying on excessive blending. Studies of his works confirm these pigments were central to his method, contributing to the vibrant yet natural appearance of facial features that set his portraits apart from more rigid contemporaries.^[35] A key innovation in Stuart's approach was his use of "wet-into-wet" layering, where he applied thin layers of paint directly onto still-wet surfaces to create seamless transitions in the face.^[36] This technique produced soft gradations and depth in skin tones and shadows, avoiding hard outlines and imparting a sense of vitality and three-dimensionality.^[36] By working quickly with fluid strokes, often over a loosely sketched reddish-brown underlayer, Stuart achieved fluid modeling that emphasized the subject's expression and form, as seen in technical analyses of his portraits.^[36] Stuart frequently left backgrounds unfinished or minimally rendered, directing focus squarely on the sitter and enhancing the portrait's immediacy. This deliberate choice streamlined his process, allowing the figure to emerge prominently against neutral or sketched grounds, a method that influenced the raw realism in later American portraiture.^[1] In a bold experimentation with replication, Stuart produced over 100 versions of his George Washington portrait from preliminary life studies, refining and varying the composition to meet demand while maintaining core likenesses. This practice, applied notably in presidential portraits, demonstrated his efficiency in scaling iconic images without sacrificing technical precision.^[1]

Legacy and Influence

Impact on American Art

Gilbert Stuart's portraits, particularly his depictions of George Washington, elevated portraiture to a central role in constructing American civic mythology during the post-Revolutionary era. His iconic Athenaeum portrait of 1796 portrayed Washington not merely as a statesman but as a moral and authoritative ideal, blending classical grandeur with lifelike realism to symbolize the young republic's virtues and stability. This image, replicated over 100 times by Stuart himself and disseminated widely through engravings, became a totemic emblem in American civil religion, reinforcing national unity and Washington's near-divine status in public consciousness. By 1869, it formed the basis for Washington's likeness on the U.S. one-dollar bill, embedding Stuart's vision into everyday American life and perpetuating the mythic narrative of foundational heroism.^[2]^[37] Stuart's realistic style, characterized by subtle shading and a focus on psychological depth, profoundly influenced subsequent American portraitists, establishing a benchmark for capturing individual character within a national framework. Later artists like Thomas Sully drew from Stuart's approach to realism, adapting his techniques for more expressive and accessible representations of American subjects. Sully, in particular, sought Stuart's advice and emulated his bust-length format and vibrant color use, which helped professionalize portraiture as a commercial and artistic enterprise in the early republic. This mentorship extended to others, such as John Vanderlyn and John Neagle, who incorporated Stuart's innovations to depict a burgeoning American elite, thereby sustaining a tradition of portraiture that mirrored the nation's evolving identity.^[38]^[9]^[30] By 1815, his works were prominently featured in exhibitions at the American Academy of the Fine Arts in New York, where his portraits helped define the institution's early collections and elevated the genre's prestige. These affiliations positioned Stuart as a pivotal figure in institutionalizing American art, bridging European traditions with indigenous developments.^[39] Modern scholarship views Stuart's oeuvre as a cornerstone of post-Revolutionary visual culture, emphasizing its role in forging a collective American identity through accessible yet aspirational imagery. Historians like Dorinda Evans highlight how Stuart's fusion of European sophistication with democratic realism democratized portraiture, making it a vehicle for civic aspiration. Analyses have further explored gender dynamics in his works, noting how portraits of women, such as those of elite figures, navigated republican ideals of domesticity and virtue, often portraying them as supportive pillars of the new nation while subtly challenging gendered hierarchies through expressive individualism. Curators like Ellen Miles at the National Portrait Gallery underscore Stuart's enduring relevance, praising his ability to humanize icons and influence ongoing discussions of identity in American art. His legacy continues with initiatives like the 2025 Gilbert Stuart Portraiture Prize and Exhibition at the Gilbert Stuart Birthplace and Museum.^[20]^[30]^[9]

Notable Portraits and Collections

Gilbert Stuart's portraits of George Washington, created during the president's second term, established his reputation as the preeminent American portraitist of the era. The Vaughan portrait, completed in 1795, depicts Washington in a three-quarter view facing right, emphasizing his dignified presence and was one of the first types Stuart developed from life sittings in Philadelphia.^[40] This oil on canvas is held in the National Gallery of Art's Andrew W. Mellon Collection in Washington, D.C., where it exemplifies Stuart's ability to capture Washington's character through subtle lighting and realistic flesh tones. The Lansdowne portrait, painted in 1796, is a full-length composition showing Washington standing heroically amid classical elements symbolizing the new republic, commissioned by British merchant George III's supporter Lord Lansdowne to honor American independence.^[41] Measuring nearly eight feet tall, this grand work resides in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has influenced countless reproductions and public imagery of the president.^[41] In the same year, Stuart began the Athenaeum portrait, an unfinished bust-length study of Washington's head facing left, left incomplete intentionally to serve as a template for replicas; it captures the president's stern gaze and powdered hair with remarkable immediacy.^[42] This iconic piece is owned jointly by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Portrait Gallery, but primarily displayed at the former.^[42] Stuart extended his presidential series to John Adams with a 1798 portrait painted during Adams's presidency, portraying the second president in formal attire against a subdued background that highlights his intellectual intensity.^[43] The original, known for its direct gaze and precise rendering of Adams's features, is preserved at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, reflecting Stuart's Philadelphia studio work amid political tensions.^[43] Similarly, his 1805 portrait of Thomas Jefferson, executed in Washington, D.C., at the start of Jefferson's second term, shows the third president in a medallion-style profile inspired by classical antiquity, underscoring Enlightenment ideals.^[44] This oil on canvas resides in the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine, and was part of Jefferson's effort to commission official likenesses for public display.^[44] Beyond political figures, Stuart's non-presidential subjects reveal his versatility in depicting women with emotional depth. His circa 1810 portrait of Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, captures her in later life with a poised expression and soft drapery, painted during Stuart's Boston period as a companion to her husband's image.^[45] Housed in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., it demonstrates Stuart's sensitivity to female sitters' personalities amid domestic settings. Earlier, in the 1790s, Stuart portrayed Theodosia Burr, daughter of Aaron Burr, as a young girl in a white dress holding a book, evoking innocence and precocity during New York society sittings.^[46] This work is now in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, though replicas and related pieces remain in private collections, highlighting Stuart's early career connections to influential families.^[46] Stuart's portraits are distributed across major American institutions, ensuring their accessibility for study and exhibition. The National Gallery of Art holds over a dozen of his works, including multiple Washington variants, while the National Portrait Gallery features key presidential images central to U.S. history. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, preserves significant holdings like the Athenaeum portrait, and recent loans have supported thematic shows, such as the 2004 Metropolitan Museum of Art retrospective that explored Stuart's depictions of women and their societal roles, filling gaps in analyses of gender in early American portraiture.^[19]

References

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Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Oct 1, 2003 · He mastered the techniques of the English grand manner during his years in London (1777–87) and Dublin (1787–93). For an American painter, study ...
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Gilbert Stuart | George Washington's Mount Vernon
Gilbert Stuart was one of the foremost painters of the Atlantic world and early United States. His portraits of key figures of the American Revolution and ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[3]
Gilbert Stuart | Smithsonian American Art Museum
Born in Rhode Island, trained in London, worked in the US and the British Isles. An ingenious, insightful, but unusually moneyminded artist.
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18th CENTURY PORTRAIT ARTIST - Gilbert Stuart Museum
Gilbert Stuart was one of 18th century America's master portrait artists. Stuart is best known for his unfinished Athenaeum portrait of George Washington.
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The Gilbert Stuart Birthplace: A House Museum With a Different Spin
... snuff mill in Saunderstown, Rhode Island. Stuart's father, Gilbert Stewart, built the snuff mill, one of the first in America, after immigrating from Scotland.Missing: occupation immigrant
[6]
Gilbert Stuart - White House Historical Association
Aug 18, 2020 · Gilbert Stuart is one of the most famous portraitists in American history, best known for his unfinished Athenaeum depiction of President George Washington.
[7]
Found! Gilbert Stuart drawing - Newport Historical Society
Feb 19, 2010 · Stuart grew up in Newport, and there are stories that his childhood drawings alerted the adults in his life to his gifts. He completed the ...Missing: early exposure family move
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Cosmo Alexander | William Vareika Fine Arts LTD
It was there that he met fourteen-year-old Gilbert Stuart and was convinced by a local physician to take young Stuart as an apprentice. The pair traveled ...
[9]
Gilbert Stuart Paintings, Bio, Ideas - The Art Story
Sep 13, 2023 · Stuart was one of America's first great portraitists. He holds the distinction of painting the new republic's first six presidents, as well as many other ...
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"Scottish Artists" Cosmo Alexander (1724 - Facebook
Jan 31, 2024 · "Scottish Artists" Cosmo Alexander (1724 – 25 August 1772) was a Scottish portrait painter. A supporter of James Edward Stuart's claim to the ...Missing: neoclassical | Show results with:neoclassical
[11]
Cosmo Alexander | National Galleries of Scotland
Cosmo was a portrait painter; however, the defining factor in ... He was the first teacher of the artist Gilbert Stuart, who he returned to Scotland with in 1771.
[12]
New Documentation: Cosmo Alexander and Early Gilbert Stuart
Yet Stuart's earliest-known portraits, painted on his return from Scotland, lack the sophistication one would expect after three years of apprenticeship. With ...
[13]
Gilbert Stuart - Person - National Portrait Gallery
American-born Stuart sailed to Scotland with his mentor, portraitist Cosmo Alexander, in around 1772. He arrived in London in 1775 with little money and few ...
[14]
Gilbert Stuart, The Skater - Smarthistory
Stuart was born in 1755 in what would later be Rhode Island. And when a young man, 20 years old, he went to London to seek his artistic fortune. After a couple ...Missing: biography | Show results with:biography
[15]
Gilbert Stuart's Skating Sensation | National Gallery of Art
Dec 21, 2023 · When he made The Skater in 1782, the 27-year-old Stuart was in London, working as an assistant to painter Benjamin West, a fellow American ...
[16]
Gilbert Stuart - Captain John Gell - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Title: Captain John Gell · Artist: Gilbert Stuart (American, North Kingston, Rhode Island 1755–1828 Boston, Massachusetts) · Date: 1785 · Culture: American · Medium ...
[17]
Stuart, Gilbert Charles | Dictionary of Irish Biography
In 1802 he sent two unnamed portraits to be exhibited in the Dublin parliament house. Stuart died in Boston on 10 July 1828. He married (10 May 1783) ...Missing: nobility | Show results with:nobility
[18]
Portrait of Henry Grattan (1746-1820), Statesman – Objects
Gilbert Stuart, American, 1755-1828. Title: Portrait of Henry Grattan (1746-1820), Statesman. Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 75 x 63 cm. Credit Line ...
[19]
Gilbert Stuart | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Oct 21, 2004 · He soon secured a position as an assistant to another American who had relocated to London—the renowned artist Benjamin West (1738–1820), ...Missing: arrival | Show results with:arrival
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Gilbert Stuart, Artist and Entertainer | National Portrait Gallery
May 13, 2008 · Gilbert Stuart is shown above, circa 1825, in a portrait by Sarah Goodridge from the National Portrait Gallery's collections.Missing: 1787-1792 nobility
[21]
Gilbert Stuart's Lansdowne Portrait - Smarthistory
This is one of the dozens of portraits that Stuart painted of our first president. Another, a full-length likeness, is called the Lansdowne Portrait.<|control11|><|separator|>
[22]
Gilbert Stuart, "George Washington (The Lansdowne Portrait)" (1796)
George Washington (The Lansdowne Portrait) ... America's conception of its first president is largely based on a sequence of enduring portraits by Gilbert Stuart.
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Gilbert Stuart - Early American Paintings - Worcester Art Museum
Stuart was the youngest of three children born to the Scottish snuff maker Gilbert Stuart and Elizabeth Anthony. After arriving in this country, the elder ...Missing: Quaker | Show results with:Quaker
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John Adams by Gilbert Stuart - National Gallery of Art
Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 211-212, which is available as a ...
[25]
James Madison by Gilbert Stuart - National Gallery of Art
Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1880, no. 207.Missing: 1818 | Show results with:1818
[26]
Gilbert Stuart - George Washington - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Stuart's most popular portraits of Washington are the so-called Athenaeum type, of which there are as many as sixty replicas dating from the turn of the ...
[27]
Gilbert Stuart - Early American Paintings - Worcester Art Museum
Gilbert Stuart was America's leading portraitist of the Federal period, and he set a standard for portraiture that would continue even after his death in 1828.1 ...
[28]
3. Who Owns Washington? Gilbert Stuart and the Battle for Artistic ...
The famous painter Gilbert Stuart went to court against a sea captain who had commissioned unauthorized copies of one of his portraits of George Washington.
[29]
Gilbert Charles Stuart, Portrait Painter - Irish Artists - Library Ireland
At about the age of 13 Stuart began to copy pictures and later attempted, with some success, portraits in pencil. Meeting with Cosmo Alexander, ...Missing: commissions Altamont
[30]
Happy birthday to the Founders' painter, Gilbert Stuart
Dec 3, 2023 · By 1794, Stuart was living in Philadelphia, which gave him easy ... In 1803, Stuart moved to the new capital of Washington to pursue more work.<|separator|>
[31]
Other Color Methods. Controlled Palettes of the Past, Etc.
Oct 5, 2007 · Gilbert Stuart, for example, made use of Prussian blue, white, yellow, vermilion, crimson lake, burnt umber, and black - but no green." He ...
[32]
Stuart's Pigments and Paint Application - Gilbert Stuart
May 5, 2016 · Stuart's Pigments and Paint Application. SEGMENTS FROM: American Painters on Technique: the Colonial Period to 1860, "Gilbert Stuart ... flesh ...
[33]
Early American Paintings
Much of the painting was done using a wet-on-wet technique, though the final glazes, details, and highlights were applied after the underlying layers had ...
[34]
“Not a Man but a God” The Apotheosis of Gilbert Stuart's Athenaeum ...
Aug 9, 2025 · This essay demonstrates that Gilbert Stuart's Athenaeum portrait of George Washington (1796) has operated historically as a devotional cult ...
[35]
Friends and Rivals: Copley, West, Peale, Trumbull, and Stuart
Oct 15, 2003 · Their paths crossed and recrossed throughout their uniformly long lives. They formed friendships, influenced each other both through their art ...Missing: successors Sully
[36]
George Washington by Gilbert Stuart - National Gallery of Art
A cleanshaven, middle-aged man with pale skin and silvery gray hair, wearing a white, ruffled shirt under a velvety black, high-necked jacket, looks out at us.
[37]
George Washington (Vaughan portrait) by Gilbert Stuart
Admission is always free. Closed today. Locations. West Building. 6th St and Constitution Ave NW Washington, DC 20565. East Building. 4th St and Constitution ...
[38]
George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait) - National Portrait Gallery
George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait) ; Date: 1796 ; Type: Painting ; Place: United States\Pennsylvania\Franklin\Germantown ; Credit Line: National Portrait ...
[39]
George Washington – Works – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
This most famous image of George Washington was commissioned from Stuart along with its pendant of Martha Washington shortly before the president retired from ...
[40]
John Adams - Collections Online - Massachusetts Historical Society
This portrait of John Adams (1735-1826) was painted by Gilbert Stuart Newton (1794-1835) before 1815. It is a copy of a portrait painted in 1798 by Gilbert ...
[41]
Portrait of Thomas Jefferson - Antiquity and America
In this iconic painting by the American portraitist Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Jefferson is shown against a classical backdrop with ionic columns framing the ...
[42]
Abigail Smith Adams (Mrs. John Adams) by Gilbert Stuart
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.Missing: 1810 | Show results with:1810
[43]
Theodosia Burr (later Theodosia Burr Alston, 1783–1812)
Theodosia Burr (later Theodosia Burr Alston, 1783–1812) ; Medium. Oil on canvas ; Dimensions. 29 × 23 1/2 in. (73.7 × 59.7 cm) ; Credit Line. Bequest of Oliver ...Missing: private | Show results with:private