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John Randolph
Gilbert Stuart1804/1805
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century_, pages 249-253, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf
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Details
- Title: John Randolph
- Creator: Gilbert Stuart
- Date Created: 1804/1805
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 73.6 x 61 cm (29 x 24 in.) framed: 89.5 x 76.8 x 7 cm (35 1/4 x 30 1/4 x 2 3/4 in.)
- Provenance: The sitter; his estate until 1845;[1] his half brother, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker [1784-1851], Williamsburg, Virginia;[2] his daughter, Cynthia Beverley Tucker Coleman [Mrs. Charles Washington Coleman, 1832-1908], Williamsburg, Virginia;[3] her son, Charles Washington Coleman, Jr. [1862-1932], Williamsburg, Virginia;[4] his brother, George Preston Coleman [1870-1948], Williamsburg, Virginia;[5] sold 21 January 1937 through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York) to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[6] gift 1940 to NGA. [1] John Randolph's estate was in litigation until 1845, when a judge ruled in favor of the 1821 version of Randolph's will; William Cabell Bruce, _John Randolph of Roanoke_, 2 vols., New York and London, 1922, 2:57-58; the will, which is reproduced in Powhatan Bouldin, _Home Reminiscences of John Randolph of Roanoke_, Danville and Richmond, Viriginia, 1878, 203-210, does not mention the painting specifically. Records concerning final disposition of his estate were destroyed in a fire in Richmond during the Civil War. [2] Writer-artist David Hunter Strother, known as "Porte Crayon," saw the portrait in the home of Judge Nathaniel Beverley Tucker in November 1849. "Some family portraits in the quaint costumes of past generations adorned the walls, among which was a more modern picture of John Randolph of Roanoke by Stewart" (Cecil D. Eby, Jr., ed., "'Porte Crayon' in the Tidewater," _Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_ 67, no. 4 (October 1959), 444. For Tucker's dates see _The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans_, 10 vols., Boston, 1904, unpaginated. [3] Mrs. Coleman was quoted in 1892 as saying, "I have it by inheritance from my father, who was John Randolph's half-brother"; Bowen, Clarence W., ed., _The History of the Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of George Washington_, New York, 1892, 522. [4] Charles Washington Coleman, Jr., to Charles Henry Hart, 13 June 1896 (NGA curatorial file): "The portrait by Stuart, to which you refer, is mine by inheritance, John Randolph having been the brother of my grandfather." For C. W. Coleman's dates see Patricia A. Gibbs' letter dated 4 August 1971 (NGA curatorial file). [5] Alexander Wilbourne Weddell, ed., _A Memorial Volume of Virginia Historical Portraiture, 1585-1830_, Richmond, 1930, opp. 332; for George P. Coleman's dates see Patricia A. Gibbs' letter dated 4 August 1971 (NGA curatorial file). [6] Memorandum, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 29 December 1936, noting release of the painting to Knoedler for sale by George Preston Coleman (copy, NGA curatorial file).
- Medium: oil on canvas
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