He made 12 or 13 copies and then he got tired of doing that. And we have a van portrait not on view. We have one downstairs, which is another replica of that. For a while the gallery thought our van portrait might have been the original that stuart painted, but it is probably a very early copy because stuart wrote that he had rubbed that one out. In the midst of making replicas of the van portrait, he got another commission from Martha Washington for the portrait, x became the one that was used on the dollar bill and is the one that is modelled after. This one was a replica of the ahea athenium. This is the portrait of washington by stuart for that commission. Theyre not all exactly the same depending on stuart felt when he was doing the replica. Stuart said that washington was difficult to paint because he was so taciturn. Washington was not one to suffer that glib kind of conversation that stuart liked to partake in, so it was difficult to get washington. They said washington, when h
On the 1 bill. Dianne hello, i am Dianne Stephens from the National Gallery of art. John trumbull is an artist who is well known for his history paintings in america, not as much portraiture. He aspired to be a history painter and then, he eventually went to england and spent a couple of years with Benjamin West. Benjamin west was an amazing figure who welcomed almost every painter that we are going to talk about today. They learned the art of history painting, came back to the colonies this is his portrait of Alexander Hamilton who was aide. Gton it is interesting that here Alexander Hamilton is hanging next to Gilbert Stuarts portrait of john jay. Madison, john jay, and Alexander Hamilton wrote the federalist papers. Also, in 1794, john jay invited Alexander Hamilton to be a part of the Treaty Commission in london. So there is quite a connection between these two men. Who knew they would hang next to each other in the National Gallery . Looking at John Jay Reeves leads us to Gilbert
Each week American History tvs american artifacts visits dedicated on march 17th, 1941, the National Gallery of art was a gift to the American People from financier andrew melon, who served as treasury secretary from 1921 to 1932. Up next, we visit the museum tos learn about early american portrait painting and the work of John Singleton copley. Hello. Im Dianne Stephens from the education department, the National Gallery of art. Were standing in a room full of portraits by John Singleton par copley, americas most importa t colonial portrait painter. Mu when you see copleys portraits, you want to discourse with them. You want to ask them questions and receive answers. I dont think you can say it much better than that. Let me give you a little background. Eand in the early part of the 18th century in america, early painters without much background and much training, we call them the limners, made ambitious but tentative efforts to capture likenesses on canvas because c portraiture was t
Proficiency. It was john jay. Gilbert stuarts purpose of coming to america was to paint washington and it was john jay who gave him his letter of introduction to washington whena he eventually went to philadelphia to paint washington, so it was john jay who really made that possible for him. Before going to washington, lets go into the next gallery. A before painting washington, as r said, stuart spent a year and a half in new york and painted many portraits while he was there. York and were lucky enough to have, oh, probably eight of them. He painted a whole series of a portraits for the yates pollock family. Two of them are hanging right here. Yates this is catherine brass yates. Y mrs. Richard yates. Stuart at his most amazing. Catherine yates was married to Richard Yates who hangs on the other side of the doorway over there. He had an importing company, soh they were import exporters of c, goods. They took to the west indies t cloth and flour and things like that. They transported
Comfortable. Copley has given us more than just a representation of his features, but we have a sense of his status and his feeling about himself. Hes painted copley has a great attention to detail. He doesnt leave anything out. Hes got the mole under epes left eye is there. His somewhat wrinkled skin is portrayed just as it is. The fact hes bursting his jacket, hes filling out his jacket anyway, is evident. The hand he has in front of him, i think, gilbert stuart, the american painter, said later about that hand if you prick that hand, blood will spurt out. Its so realistically painted with no effort to make it pretty. Here you see that epes is leaning on an antique column, and there probably werent many of those in the colonies in the 1760s. Copley gets much much of his training comes from the fact that his stepfather was an engraver and this compositional idea probably came from that. I love to look at this just a little bit. It must be his waistcoat showing through. Hes dressed for