[Article]
[p. 22]Gelleria
Merchants and Planters: American Portraits of the Colonial Period and the Early Republic
By George Parker
This is the last in a series of three articles addressing the lives of early Americans through artifacts held in Wisconsin collections. The first article had as its subject furniture of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries; the second featured items of household use made of metal---primarily silver, pewter, and brass. Logically, then, we turn to the people who made and then used these items---their appearance, the manner in which they dressed, and the environment in which they lived.
Just as today, the English-speaking peoples of the New World included professionals and workers in many walks of life---lawyers, doctors, builders, soldiers, farmers. But those who had their portraits painted were primarily wealthy merchants in the north, located mainly in a belt from Philadelphia to north of Boston; and equally wealthy planters in the south, living and working in an area from Maryland to Georgia.
Society two hundred years ago was characterized by conspicuous consumption. If one had it, one displayed it. Community standing was measured by the quality of personal accessories and furnishings and the complexity and refinement of one's table, along with the pedigree conferred by both money and education.
But the most personal and the most significant way in which an individual said "I'm important, look at me" was to have a portrait painted. And that portrait had to depict the sitter accurately: warts, wens, scars, and all. Recognition of the individual depicted was paramount. Invariably the painter would garb his subject in the finest clothes available. John Singleton Copley is known to have had dress clothing on hand for use by the sitter. On several occasions the same dress appears in different portraits, in different colors. But the faces, hands, and general physiognomy had to look like the person being painted. If the person had blemishes such as blotchy skin or a too-large nose, then it was important that those characteristics be included. Only, as mentioned, in dress was cosmeticizing allowed.
Over 90 percent of the paintings done in the period from 1650 to 1820 were portraits, and virtually all of those were commissioned by the sitters. Landscapes, still lifes, and historical panoramas were painted, but principally as a labor of love or in hopes that the paintings ultimately could be sold. The fact that so few were sold is testimony to the rarity of their occurrence and the even rarer frequency in which they are found today.
In addition to the locally born artists such as Robert Feke of Long Island and Newport, John Singleton Copley of Boston, Benjamin West and Charles Willson Peale of Philadelphia, and Gilbert Stuart of Rhode Island, itinerant British painters came and traveled throughout the colonies. John Smibert, Joseph Blackburn, John Wollaston, and Charles Bridges are some of the better-known painters in this group. John Smibert was the first of the formally trained painters to come to America in 1729 and is represented by a pair of portraits in the illustrations accompanying this article.
In the north the mercantile preferences for materialism, pragmatism, and utilitarianism are evident in the paintings. Subjects are often shown at their work. Merchants are depicted with their ledgers or the products they sold. Lawyers were often depicted either with robes or open law books. Soldiers were always in dress uniform. The women were usually shown in a state of domesticity accompanied by birds, flowers, and pets as well as gardening baskets, and often they were clothed in light house dresses. If a child were included in the portrait, a rattle, toy, nursery book, or other symbols of youth invariably appeared. In a group portrait, convention dictated that at least the mother was shown to look endearingly at the child.
In the south a more aristocratic environment is usually present. English poses, clothing, and styles abound. The men are usually wearing perukes or wigs and are much more formally posed than their northern counterparts. The southern planter's contacts with London were more important to him [p. 23] than contact with the colonial settlements to the north; and the English influence, augmented by regular trips across the Atlantic for business and pleasure, reinforced those ties.
The portraits, all of which are now housed in Wisconsin, help us to understand these early Americans and the world in which they lived. It is not a stretch of the imagination for those of us who live in Wisconsin to think of these people as our lineal antecedents.
Among the artists themselves, one stands out above the rest: John Singleton Copley (1737-1815), born in Boston, is the undisputed master of the American portrait painters as well as the English portrait painters who worked on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. His work in this country dates from the mid-1750s to June of 1774 when he left Boston for England, never to return. The primary reasons for his leaving were two-fold: his marriage into the Clarke family, who were prominent Tories, and the drying up of commissions in the 1770s due to political unrest in Boston and the onset of the American Revolution. Three of his works are included with the illustrations that accompany this article. All portraits are painted in oil on canvas.
John Smibert (1688-1751),A Lady with Pearls, 50 x 40 inches, ca. 1740, Boston.
Smibert, the first formally trained portraitist to come from England, arrived in Newport in 1729. He was a protege of Sir Godfrey Kneller, court painter to George I, and many of Kneller's characteristics appear in Smiberts work. The women are usually holding an object---in this case it is a string of pearls. Sometimes it is a child's toy, a letter, or a book that is depicted.
Attributed to John Smibert, Portrait of a Woman, 30 x 25 inches, ca. 1735-45, Boston.
This almost certainly is Smibert's work, though it is a simpler, smaller, and less expensive commission than A Lady with Pearls; had the subject posed with a prop, such as a toy or book, the painter would have charged an additional fee.
A very sketchy provenance indicates that this woman could possibly have been related to the Lovells, whose family members have lived in the Boston area since the eighteenth century. The painting was owned until recently by a member of the Lovell family.
John Wollaston (in America 1748-1767),Lady in a Gold Dress, 50 x 40 inches, ca. 1765-67, Charleston, South Carolina.
Wollaston was another British artist who painted in the middle colonies and New York before leaving for six years to work in the West Indies. He returned to Charleston in 1765, where he did his best work, and left in 1767 for England, where he was still painting in the 1770s.
John Singleton Copley (1737-1815), Joshua Winslow, 30 x 25 inches, 1769, Boston.
The Winslows and the Clarkes, Copley's in-laws, were prominent Tories and the consignees of the tea that was dumped overboard during the Boston Tea Party. The Winslows went to Canada and the Clarkes accompanied Copley to England in June of 1774. He became a success in London almost overnight and never returned to America.
John Singleton Copley (1737-1815), Man in Red Coat, 30 x 25 inches, ca. 1775-80, London.
While it is conceded that Copley refined his talent in England, it is also true that his later English work loses its dramatic use of light and shadow along with the camera-like quality of his earlier American work. The painting is shown here next to Joshua Winslow so that a stylistic comparison can be made.
Charles Wilison Peale (1741-1827), Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Russell, a pair of portraits, 1784, probably Philadelphia.
Thomas Russell was an ironmaster who was born in England in 1741 and came to American in 1764. He was, along with George Washington's elder half-brother, Lawrence, one of the organizers of the Pricipio Iron Company and was a key contributor to the movement towards revolution and independence. Thomas died soon after this portrait was painted, and his widow, Ann, remarried.
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) Mr. And Mrs. Edward Tuckerman, 29 x 24 inches, before 1814, Boston.
Edward Tuckerman (1775-1843) was a merchant in Boston as well as a banker, Hanna Parkman Tuckerman was born in Boston in 1777 and died in 1814; in 1817 Edward Tuckerman remarried.
Ralph Earl (1751-1801) Major James Fairlie, 26 x 22 inches, 1787, New York.
Major Fairlie (1757-1830) was one of Major General Friedrich von Steuben's aides-de-camp. This portrait was painted by Ralph Earl when he was in debtors prison in New York. Earl studied with Benjamin West in London, as did many other American painters, including Charles Willson Peale, John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and Matthew Pratt.
The medal in Fairlie lapel is the Order of the Society of the Cincinnati, awarded to the officers of the Continental Army after the Treaty of Paris. The reference is to Roman general and statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, born about 519 B.C., who left his small farm and distinguished himself in battle in 458 B.C. and again in 439 B.C. He was looked upon as a model of competence and courage as well as virtue and simplicity, and he returned to farming after his battlefield victories.
Thomas Sully (1783-1872) Mrs. Mordecai Lewis, 27 x 20 inches, 1843, Philadelphia.
Sully painted this portrait for the subjects daughter, Mrs. Fisher, in the autumn of 1843; it was begun on October 5 and completed on October 19. Sully was probably the most prolific portrait painter of this period. Over 2,000 portraits are definitely known to be from his hand, and he continued working almost to the time of his death. After 1850 his work declined seriously in quality, but his production did not decrease.
Thomas Sully is considered to be the bridge between the art of the colonies and the New Republic and what was to follow in the nineteenth century.
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