Gilbert Stuart (néStewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter born in the Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists.[2] His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washington, begun in 1796, which is usually referred to as the Athenaeum Portrait. Stuart retained the original and used it to paint scores of copies that were commissioned by patrons in America and abroad. The image of George Washington featured in the painting has appeared on the United States one-dollar bill for more than a century[2] and on various postage stamps of the 19th century and early 20th century.[3]
Stuart moved to Newport, Rhode Island, at the age of six, where his father pursued work in the merchant field. In Newport, he first began to show great promise as a painter.[10] In 1770, he made the acquaintance of Scottish artist Cosmo Alexander, a visitor to the colonies who made portraits of local patrons and who became a tutor to Stuart.[11][12] Under the guidance of Alexander, Stuart painted the portrait Dr. Hunter's Spaniels when he was 14; it hangs today in the Hunter House Mansion in Newport.[7]
In 1771, Stuart moved to Scotland with Alexander to finish his studies; however, Alexander died in Edinburgh one year later. Stuart tried to maintain a living and pursue his painting career, but to no avail, so he returned to Newport in 1773.[13]
Stuart's prospects as a portraitist were jeopardized by the onset of the American Revolution and its social disruptions. Although he was a patriot,[14] he departed for England in 1775 following the example set by John Singleton Copley.[15] His painting style during this period began to develop beyond the relatively hard-edged and linear style that he had learned from Alexander.[16] He was unsuccessful at first in pursuit of his vocation, but he became a protégé of Benjamin West in 1777 and studied with him for the next six years. The relationship was beneficial, with Stuart exhibiting for the first time at the Royal Academy in spring of 1777.[17]
By 1782, Stuart had met with success, largely due to acclaim for The Skater, a portrait of Sir William Grant. It was Stuart's first full-length portrait and, according to a rival, it belied the prevailing opinion that Stuart "made a tolerable likeness of a face, but as to the figure, he could not get below the fifth button'".[18] Stuart said that he was "suddenly lifted into fame by a single picture".[19]
The prices for his pictures were exceeded only by those of renowned English artists Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Despite his many commissions, however, he was habitually neglectful of finances and was in danger of being sent to debtors' prison. In 1787, he fled to Dublin, Ireland where he painted and accumulated debt with equal vigor.[20]
New York City and Philadelphia
Stuart ended his 18-year stay in Britain and Ireland in 1793, leaving behind numerous unfinished paintings. He returned to the United States with a particular goal of painting a portrait of George Washington and having an engraver reproduce it and provide for his family through the engraving's sale.[21] He settled briefly in New York City and pursued portrait commissions from influential people who could bring him to Washington's attention.[17] In 1794, he painted statesman John Jay, from whom he received a letter of introduction to Washington. In 1795, Stuart moved to the Germantown section of Philadelphia, where he opened a studio,[22][23] and Washington posed for him later that year.[17]
George Washington engraving by G.F.C. Smillie
Stuart painted Washington in a series of iconic portraits, each of them leading to a demand for copies and keeping him busy and highly paid for years.[24] The most famous and celebrated of these likenesses, the Athenaeum portrait, is portrayed on the United States one-dollar bill. Stuart painted about 50 reproductions of it.[25] However, he avoided completing the original version. After finishing Washington's face, he kept it to make copies which he sold for $100 each. Thus the original portrait remained in its unfinished state at the time of his death in 1828.[26] An engraver at the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, George Frederick Cumming Smillie, made an etching of the painting which was used on multiple banknotes. A vignette of the portrait appears on the 2 silver dollar bill of 1899, and the one dollar note of (1918 to 2023). United States one-dollar bills featured the image for decades (1918 to 2023).[27]
Another celebrated image of Washington is the full-length Lansdowne portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery. Its historical importance is almost matched by an early forgery based on it which was purchased for the White House. This painting was rescued during the Burning of Washington in the War of 1812 thanks to the efforts of First LadyDolley Madison and Paul Jennings, one of President James Madison's slaves. Three replicas of the original portrait are accepted as by Stuart.[30] Additional copies were painted by other artists.[31] In 1803, Stuart opened a studio in Washington, D. C.[32]
Boston, 1805–1828
Stuart's unfinished 1796 painting of George Washington, also known as the Athenaeum Portrait, his most celebrated and famous work
Stuart married Charlotte Coates around September 1786; she was 13 years his junior and "exceedingly pretty".[36] They had 12 children, five of whom died by 1815 and two others of whom died in their youth. Their daughter Jane (1812–1888) was also a painter. She sold many of his paintings and her replicas of them from her studios in Boston and Newport, Rhode Island.[37] In 2011, she was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.[38]
In 1824, Stuart suffered a stroke which left him partially paralyzed, but he continued to paint for two years until his death in Boston on July 9, 1828, at 72.[39] He was buried in the Central Burial Ground at Boston Common.
Stuart left his family deeply in debt, and his wife and daughters were unable to purchase a grave site. He was, therefore, buried in an unmarked grave which was purchased cheaply from Benjamin Howland, a local carpenter.[40] His family recovered from their financial troubles 10 years later, and they planned to move his body to a family cemetery in Newport. However, they could not remember the exact location of his body, and it was never moved.[41] There is a monument for Stuart, his wife, and their children at the Common Burying Ground in Newport.[42]
The Boston Athenæum held a benefit exhibition of Stuart's works in August 1828 in an effort to provide financial aid for his family. More than 250 portraits were lent for this critically acclaimed and well-subscribed exhibition. This also marked the first public showing of his unfinished 1796 Athenæum portrait of Washington.[43]
Legacy
By the end of his career, Gilbert Stuart had painted the likenesses of more than 1,000 American political and social figures.[44] He was praised for the vitality and naturalness of his portraits, and his subjects found his company agreeable. John Adams said:
Speaking generally, no penance is like having one's picture done. You must sit in a constrained and unnatural position, which is a trial to the temper. But I should like to sit to Stuart from the first of January to the last of December, for he lets me do just what I please, and keeps me constantly amused by his conversation.[45]
Stuart was known for working without the aid of sketches, beginning directly upon the canvas. His approach is suggested by the advice which he gave to his pupil Matthew Harris Jouett: "Never be sparing of colour, load your pictures, but keep your colours as separate as you can. No blending, tis destruction to clear & bea[u]tiful effect."[18] Although this is an exaggeration to avoid muddiness, Stuart's colors were remarkably fresh. At Stuart's best, he had an extraordinary ability to convey the impression of "luminous, transparent flesh" with color coming from beneath. The face seemed to be embued with life, while the beauty of its coloring conveyed a spiritual quality to contemporaries.[46] Although uneven, he could produce astonishingly strong likenesses.[47]
Today, Stuart's birthplace in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, is open to the public as the Gilbert Stuart Birthplace and Museum. The birthplace consists of the original house where he was born, with copies of his paintings hanging throughout the house, as well as a separate art gallery in which are displayed several original paintings by both Gilbert Stuart and his daughter Jane. The museum opened in 1931.[49]
Gilbert Stuart's paintings of Washington, Jefferson, and others have served as models for dozens of U.S. postage stamps. Washington's image from the famous portrait The Athenaeum is probably the most noted example of Stuart's work on postage.
This lithograph of Little Turtle is reputedly based upon a lost portrait by Gilbert Stuart that was destroyed when the British burned Washington in 1814.[54]
^"10-cent Washington". Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Retrieved August 26, 2015.
^ ab"Gilbert Stuart Birthplace". Archived from the original on November 16, 2005. Retrieved October 10, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), The Story of Gilbert Stuart. Woonsocket Connection. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
Evans, Dorinda (1999). The Genius of Gilbert Stuart. Princeton University Press. ISBN0-691-05945-4.
Fielding, Mantle (1929). "Paintings by Gilbert Stuart not mentioned in Mason's Life of Stuart". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 53 (2). The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. JSTOR20086696.
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![Mrs. Hepzibah [Clarke] Swan, 1808, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston](File:Gilbert_Stuart_-_Mrs._James_Swan_(Hepzibah_Clarke)_-_27.539_-_Museum_of_Fine_Arts.jpg)
![Major-General Henry Dearborn 1812–1815[?]](File:Gilbert_Stuart_-_Major-General_Henry_Dearborn_-_1913.793_-_Art_Institute_of_Chicago.jpg)
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![This lithograph of Little Turtle is reputedly based upon a lost portrait by Gilbert Stuart that was destroyed when the British burned Washington in 1814.[54]](File:Little_Turtle.jpg)
