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General William Smallwood
Robert Edge Pine1785/1788
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: General William Smallwood
- Creator: Robert Edge Pine
- Date Created: 1785/1788
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 73.8 x 61.1 cm (29 1/16 x 24 1/16 in.) framed: 93 x 80.7 x 10.2 cm (36 5/8 x 31 3/4 x 4 in.)
- Provenance: The sitter's nephew, William Truman Stoddert [1759-1793]; his son, John Truman Stoddert [1790-1870], Charles County, Maryland; his daughter, Elizabeth Stoddert Bowie [Mrs. Robert Bowie, Jr., 1826-c.1905], Charles County and Baltimore, Maryland;[1] sold 1892 to James A. Conner [d. 1921], Baltimore;[2] bequeathed to George D. Hall, Seattle, Washington.[3] J. Bannister Hall; purchased 1922 by Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[4] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1947 to NGA. [1] After the death of her children, Mrs. Bowie moved to Baltimore, where she lived with her grandson Robert William Bowie Stoddert. She provided the provenance for the portrait in a statement given to Thomas G. Hull, Notary Public, Baltimore, on April 15, 1905 (copy owned by Thomas B. Clarke, curatorial file). She also stated that the sitter had commissioned the portrait for his mother, but this is unlikely since Mrs. Smallwood died in 1784. For biographical information on these owners see Walter Worthington Bowie, _The Bowies and their Kindred_ (Washington, D.C., 1899), 204-206; _Who Was Who in America; Historical Volume, 1607-1896_, rev. ed. (Chicago, 1967), 580 (John Truman Stoddert); and Edward C. Papenfuse et. al., _A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789_ (Baltimore, 1979), 2: 741 (William Smallwood). William Stoddert's dates were provided by the Society of the Cincinnati, Washington, D.C.; he was a founding member (Bryce Metcalf, _Original Members and Other Officers eligible to the Society of the Cincinnati, 1783-1938_ (Strasburg, VA, 1938), 299. [2] A copy of the bill of sale dated 30 November 1892 was given to Thomas B. Clarke in 1922 (NGA curatorial file). [3] Conner, who died on 29 May 1921, named his deceased wife's nephew George D. Hall as his heir (will filed with the Register of Wills, Baltimore, Maryland); the inventory of Conner's estate included a "Family Oil Portrait" valued at $5.00 and a "Lot of Pictures" valued at $25. Hall, of Seattle, Washington, is listed as a former owner of the painting in _A Loan Exhibition of Portraits of Soldiers and Sailors in American Wars_ (Duveen Galleries, New York, 1945), 40. [4] The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in a copy of _Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Collected by Thomas B. Clarke_, Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928, annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library). J. Bannister Hall, Jr. is listed as a lawyer in a 1922 Baltimore City directory; his relationship to George D. Hall is unknown.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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