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Sir Joshua Reynolds
Gilbert Stuart1784
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 172-177, 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: Sir Joshua Reynolds
- Creator: Gilbert Stuart
- Date Created: 1784
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 91.6 x 76.4 cm (36 1/16 x 30 1/16 in.) framed: 108 x 93.7 x 5.7 cm (42 1/2 x 36 7/8 x 2 1/4 in.)
- Provenance: Commissioned by John Boydell [1719-1804], London; probably inherited by his nephew and business partner, Josiah Boydell [1752-1817], London. Possibly sold by an unidentified consigner at (Greenwood & Co., London, 3 April 1806, no. 49) and (Greenwood & Co., London, 21 May 1807, no. 40), purchaser not recorded.[1] Murrough O'Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin and 1st Marquis of Thomond [d. 1808];[2] by descent to his nephew, James O'Brien, 7th Earl of Inchiquin and 3rd Marquis of Thomond [1769-1855], Bath.[3] (T.H. Robinson, London, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York), October 1919; sold 11 December 1919 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[4] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection on 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York) to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1942 to NGA. [1] _The Index of Paintings Sold in the British Isles during the Nineteenth Century_, Burton B. Fredericksen, ed. (Santa Barbara, California and Oxford, England, 1990), 2: 951, as "Stuart, _An Original Protrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds_, " consigned by "a gentleman," and as "G. Stuart, _A Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds_." Only the second price is recorded, with some question, as three pounds, six pence. Since this is a very small price for a full-size portrait, perhaps these sales are instead for the "Small head, Sir Joshua Reynolds, sketch" attributed to Sturart that was sold at Christie's on 5 February 1818 by a Mr. Rising, with a small head of the Marquis of Landsown, also attributed to Stuart. The pair went for five guineas. (Information courtesy of The Getty Provenance Index, 7 April 1992). [2] Jane Stuart, "The Youth of Gilbert Stuart," _Scribner's Monthly_ 13, no. 5 (March 1877), 644 recorded that "Lord Inchiquin" paid 250 guineas for her father's portrait of Reynolds. It has been assumed that this was the 5th Earl, whose wife was Mary Palmer [d. 1820], Reynolds niece and heiress. On the Earls of Inchiquin see _Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage_, 104th ed., London, 1967, 1325-1330. [3] According to Knoedler's records (letter from Melissa De Medeiros, librarian, 5 June 1992, NGA curatorial file), the portrait was from the estate of James O'Brien, the 3rd and last marquis of Thomond, and "the present Lord Inchiquin is unable to say when the picture left the family." Henry William Beechey, ed., _The Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, First President of the Royal Academy_, rev. ed., 2 vols., London, 1855, 300, records the portrait and reproduces an engraving of it as his frontispieces, but he does not record any owner after Boydell. [4] Knoedler purchased a joint share from T.H. Robinson in October 1919 and sold the painting to Clarke in December. The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in a copy of _Portraits by Early American Painters 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).
- Medium: oil on canvas
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