History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 47

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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this gentleman also died shortly after, and the young American was left without friends in a strange coun- try. What befell him there is not known. We next hear of his arrival in Nova Scotia, in great distress and poverty, having, it is believed, worked for his passage on board the collier that brought him there. From Nova Scotia he managed to get back to New- port, R. I., where he was some time in getting over the effects of the hardships he had suffered. But his travels had not been profitless, he had learned some- thing of drawing and painting, and he resumed with renewed ardor his favorite occupation.

About this time his uncle, Joseph Anthony, came to Newport on a visit to his relatives, and was much struck by a portrait of his mother, which Gilbert, the grandson, had painted from memory, the old lady . the open door of a church in Foster Lane. Several having died when he was ten years old. Mr. An- thony gave a commission to his nephew to paint the portraits of himself, his wife, and two children, and showing these to his friends, succeeded in ob-

taining for the young artist orders for the painting of several other portraits. The warm interest felt by Mr. Anthony in his young kinsman and the encour- agement he gave him were most valuable. This was the painter's first start in life, and pretty soon he had as many portraits to paint as he could attend to. But the Revolutionary con- test with Great Britain was approaching; the clouds of war were already gather- ing, and art, to flourish, needs a peaceful sky. Stu- art, besides, wished better opportunities for study than he could find at home. He resolved to follow his schoolmate and dear friend, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, who had gone to London a few months before. He was not well provided with money, but he counted on his friend or on his own luck. He arrived in London in November, 1775, and learned, with what feelings of disappointment may well be imagined, that Waterhouse had gone to Edinburgh. He was a stranger, alone, friendless, almost penniless, in the great metropolis. He had suffered in Scotland, and now England had no better welcome for him.

That the young painter's first experience of London was a hard one is beyond doubt ; but Gilbert Stuart was not the man to give way to despondency ; he was possessed of that hopeful temperament ascribed to

GILBERT STUART. [After the engraving by D. Edwin from Neagle's painting.]

Mr. Micawber by Dickens, and often "waited for something to turn up." Nor was he deceived in his hope, though he had dark hours which would have made a less sanguine man despair. Stuart was a fine musician, noted particularly for his skill on the organ. This was fortunate, for music gave him the means of support before his pencil had found employment. The circumstances, related by Stuart himself to Mr. Charles Fraser, of Charleston, S. C., and Mr. Thomas Sully, of Philadelphia, and given at length by Dunlap, in his " History of the Arts of Design," were as follows : In that first period of trial, as Stuart was walking the streets listlessly one day, revolving in his mind the problem of how to pay his landlord for board and lodging, he heard the sounds of an organ issuing from persons were going in, and of one of these he inquired what was going on. He was informed that several candidates for the vacant position of organist were to exhibit their skill in pres- ence of the vestry, who sat as judges. Entering the church, he placed himself as near as he could to the vestrymen, and after listen- ing a while, asked one of them if he, a stranger, might try his skill and be- come a candidate for the place. Receiving an af- firmative answer, he took his seat at the organ, and drew from it such sweet sounds that the delighted judges were unanimous in giving him the preference over his rivals. After due inquiry he was engaged at a salary of thirty pounds a year, which enabled him to support himself while pursuing his studies as a painter.

Strange as it may seem, Stuart did not get ac- quainted with West until the summer of 1778. His reception by that great artist is described in Stuart's own words to Mr. Fraser.1 He said "that on appli- cation to Mr. West to receive him as a pupil, he was welcomed with true benevolence, encouraged, and taken into the family ; that nothing could exceed the attention of that artist to him; they were, said he, paternal." Stuart studied for some years with West, whose kindness to him he never forgot, and at last, by his friend and master's advice, commenced paint- ing as a professional artist. His first portrait, that

1 Dunlap's " History of the Arts of Design."

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of Mr. Grant, being put on exhibition, attracted gen- eral attention. In a short time he had become famous, and his pictures occupied the best places at the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy. In- dolent and industrious by fits, loving pleasure, fond of society in which he was hailed as a most agreeable companion, whose conversation sparkled with wit and humor, Stuart did not derive from his great success the material advantages they should have brought a man of ordinary prudence. Even when his pictures commanded the highest prices, he was often in debt. He returned to the United States in 1793, and settled in New York. There he painted many portraits. Dunlap mentions as particularly fine those of the Pollock and Yates families, Sir John Temple and some of his family, the Hon. John Jay, Gen. Matthew Clarkson, John R. Murray, and Col. Giles.

Stuart now conceived a great desire to paint the portrait of President Washington. He obtained a letter of introduction from John Jay, and came to Philadelphia (1794). Here he painted his first por- trait of Washington, but only finished the head. This unfinished portrait he kept, and used it as a model for many other portraits of Washington, which he executed in after-years. The President, by the per- suasion of Mrs. Bingham, it is said, consented to sit for the full-length portrait, which, engraved by Heath, of London, became generally known as Stuart's Wash- ington. This portrait was the cause of a quarrel between the painter and Mr. Bingham. It had been painted for Lord Lansdowne, and Mr. Bingham per- suaded Stuart to sell it to him in order that he might present it to that nobleman. Mr. Bingham, when he sent the portrait to Lord Lansdowne, neglected to reserve the right of the painter to have it reproduced by engraving. It was engraved by Heath, and Stuart had no share in the profits of the operation. He reproached Mr. Bingham with having sacrificed his interests, and they parted in anger. Stuart was then painting a very beautiful head of Mrs. Bingham ; he left it unfinished, and never touched it afterward. Dunlap calls Heath's a "vile" engraving, "a libel upon Stuart and Washington."

Stuart took up his residence at Germantown, where he remained until Congress removed to Washington, when he went to that city. During his stay in Phila- delphia he painted portraits of Judge Shippen, Judge (afterward Governor) Mckean, three portraits for Peter Wager, wine merchant, and others. Volney, the French traveler and author, sat for his portrait to Stuart. Dolly Paine, afterward the wife of James Madison, was painted by Stuart. A portrait of A. J. Dallas, from the pencil of this artist, and of Timothy Pickering, are generally known by the existence of engraved copies. Stuart also painted the portraits of Eleanor Curtis (afterward Mrs. Lawrence Lewis), Sally Mckean (afterward the Marchioness De Yrujo), and Elizabeth Willing (afterward Mrs. William Jack- so1). A portrait of John Nixon, by Gilbert Stuart,

was in the possession of Henry Cramond. Ricketts, the circus-rider, sat to him, and the artist becoming angry at the equestrian, who gave him a good deal of trouble by his want of promptitude and the delays which occurred, is said to have dashed his paint- brush into the face of the portrait, declaring that he would have nothing more to do with him. A portrait of Mrs. Benedict Arnold (formerly Peggy Shippen), by Stuart, was in possession of Edward Shippen of this city. A very fine portrait of Provost William Smith, of the University, belongs to Dr. Brinton.

Gilbert Stuart died in Boston in July, 1828, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He died a poor man, after enjoying merited celebrity for nearly half a cen- tury. He preserved his brilliant faculties to the last. We will close this brief notice of the great portrait- painter with a last extract from Mr. Dunlap's work : " If we judge by the portrait of the Hon. John Quincy Adams, the last head he painted, his powers of mind were undiminished to the last, and his eye free from the dimness of age. This picture was begun as a full-length, but death arrested the hand of the artist after he had completed the likeness of the face, and proved that, at the age of seventy-four, he paiuted better than in the meridian of life. This picture has been finished-that is, the person and accessories painted-by that eminent and highly-gifted artist, Mr. Thomas Sully, who, as he has said, would have thought it little less than sacrilege to have touched the head."

Benjamin Trott, an American artist, who came to Philadelphia with Stuart in 1794, was one of the best miniature painters of his time. Stuart had become acquainted with him in New York, where he had been practicing for some time, and liking his style, recommended him when miniature copies of his por- traits were wanted. In Philadelphia, among other works he made an excellent copy, on ivory, of Stuart's Washington. He left the city in 1805, but came back in 1806, and remained until 1819. He and Thomas Sully were for some years joint tenants of a house, each pursuing his respective branch of art. Trott was extremely sensitive, and at the same time given to making caustic remarks, which may ac- count in some measure for his not achieving any great success, notwithstanding his acknowledged skill in portrait-painting. In a notice of some miniatures of his which were exhibited at the academy in 1812, a writer in the Portfolio remarks, " The works of this excellent artist are justly esteemed for truth and ex- pression. In examining his miniatures we perceive all the force and effect of the best oil pictures ; and it is but fair to remark that Mr. Trott is purely an American : he has never been either in London or l'aris."

The Swedish painter, Wertmuller, also settled in Philadelphia in 1794. He was in the maturity of his age and talent, and had already acquired some fame in Europe. He brought with him some of his paint- 1

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ings, which, being much admired, brought him several commissions. He painted Washington, and, it is said, recopied for James Hamilton the portraits of the Hamilton family, and then Hamilton destroyed the originals. Wertmuller returned to Europe in 1796, but having lost much money through some unlucky investment, he bethought him of Philadelphia and of his success there, and came back in 1800, bringing with him his celebrated painting of " Danae." This being a nude figure, could not be exhibited publicly, yet the curiosity to see this masterpiece was such that its private exhibition brought to the artist quite a handsome income. Wertmuller lived some years in Philadelphia, where he married a lady of Swedish descent, and finally removed to Marcus Hook, Pa., where he died in 1812. His pictures were sold at auction after his death and commanded very good prices, a copy of his " Danae" selling for five hundred dollars.

Samuel Jennings, a native of Philadelphia, painted a large and imposing allegorical picture in the year 1792, which he presented to the Philadelphia Library. It is called "The Genius of America Encouraging the Emancipation of the Blacks." It was long ex- hibited in the room of the Loganian Library, but now is in the main room of the Philadelphia Library. It is a showy picture, but is not a work of high art. Jennings went to London, and Dunlap says that he was there in 1794, and degraded his talent by " manu- facturing old pictures for the knowing ones, -a degra- dation which could lead to no other result than poverty and wretchedness."

Quite a number of foreign artists, mostly unknown to fame, visited Philadelphia during the last years of the eighteenth century. The young American republic naturally attracted the attention of the world. Travelers sought the seat of government, where they might become acquainted with the great men of the Revolution, and be allowed to contem- plate that wonderful man who had successfully led his countrymen to victory and liberty,-George Wash- ington. Artists were eager to copy his august features. We doubt if any man was ever painted, engraved, and lithographed so often as our Washington was during that period and the following decade. It is not very long since an aged Philadelphian gave his recol- lection of the arrival of a vessel from Canton, which "brought to this port a few likenesses of Washington, executed on glass, in a superb and masterly style, by an eminent Chinese artist. It is said that the resem- blance was striking, and approached very much to Stuart's happiest efforts." Those artists, though un- known to fame, deserve a brief notice as having cou- tributed each, in his modest way, to the history of art in Philadelphia.

specimen of his style is preserved in a view of Centre Square. His most important work was a portrait of the French Gen. Moreau, which he painted when this celebrated man was in Philadelphia. Barralett added some fancy decorations to the plate of Robertson's min- iature portrait of Washington when it was engraved by the Englishman, R. Field, himself an excellent miniature-painter as well as engraver. Barralett was described as "a man of talent, without discretion or anything like common prudence, prodigally generous, and graspingly poor. . . . He had the wildest portions of the French and Irish character vindictively united in him. He had some mechanical genius. He in- vented a ruling-machine,-the first used in the United States by engravers. He also devoted much time to the improvement of ink for copper-plate printing."

A young painter of the name of Bartello, probably an Italian, was employed by T. B. Freeman, in 1796, to paint portraits from which engravings might be made. Duvivier & Son kept an academy of drawing and painting, on North Second Street, in 1797. Mr. Duvivier, it was stated, "painted on silk and satins." Lawrence Sully, an elder brother of the famous ar- tist, Thomas Sully, painted miniatures and fancy pic- tures, at No. 58 North Fifth Street, at that time. On Washington's birthday, Feb. 22, 1796, there was an exhibition of " The Temple of Minerva," with a statue of the goddess contemplating a bust of Washington, all of which was the work of Joseph Peruani, an Italian painter and architect. Woolley, an English painter, divided his time between New York and Philadelphia. He painted small portraits in oil, and other pictures. John Joseph Holland, who was brought from his native city of London, by Wignell, in 1796, as scene-painter for the Chestnut Street The- atre, also drew and sketched landscapes. A view of Philadelphia from the west side of the Schuylkill, near the upper ferry, was drawn by Holland about 1797, and engraved by Gilbert Fox. It shows the Fairmount hill, and gives a curious view of the city from an unusual point of observation. Holland taught Hugh Reinagle and John Evers, distinguished scene-painters.

James Sharpless, also an Englishman, visited Phila- delphia in 1798. He painted in oil and in pastel, and traveled over the country, making the portraits of distinguished people for a collection of his own, and generally getting orders for copies from the persons he thus proposed to immortalize on canvas or paste- board. As he could paint a portrait in two hours, and his charges were fifteen dollars for a profile and twenty dollars for a full head, he made money, but cannot be said to have filled Pennsylvania homes with masterpieces of art. A part of his collection, how- ever, is now in the National Museum in Philadelphia. The Irishman, Gallagher, who, according to Dunlap, painted portraits in Philadelphia in 1800, painted signs when he had no other work. In 1798 he painted

John James Barralett, an Irishman, born of French parents, came to Philadelphia about 1795. His prin- cipal occupation was that of designing engravings for books. He also made picturesque drawings, and a / a standard for the First Volunteer Cavalry, com-

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manded by Capt. McKean. "He had a dashy, sketchy manner, and had been well instructed in the rudiments of drawing." James House, who afterwards entered the United States army, rose to the rank of colonel, and commanded a fine regiment in 1814, is said to have practiced portrait-painting in Philadelphia about 1799. John Eckstein was living in Philadel- phia in 1800, and for some years after. According to Sully, as quoted by Dunlap, he was more of a drudge than an artist : " he could do you a picture in still life, history, landscape, or portrait. He could model, cut a head in marble, or anything you please." Eckstein painted, among other historical pictures, " The Roman and Sabine Combatants separated by the Sabine Women." In 1812 he exhibited a model of an equestrian statue of Gen. Washington in Roman costume.

Among the members of the equestrian company brought out by the manager ( West) in 1792, was an Englishman named Lawrence Sully, who was ac- companied by his whole family, consisting of four sons and several daughters. Some of these children the boy Thomas, was destined to fill a high place among Philadelphia artists. Thomas was nine years old when he came to America, and even at that early age he expressed a determination to become a painter like his elder brother, Lawrence, who had settled in Richmond, Va., as a miniature and device painter. One of the Sully girls had married Mr. Belzons, a French gentleman, who painted very well for an amateur, having no professional experience. Mr. Belzons encouraged his little brother-in-law's efforts, and gave him such instructions as he could. The boy was passionately fond of his art, and derived much benefit from this instruction, however incomplete, but, unfortunately, he had a quarrel with his brother-in- law and master, whose temper was not of the best, and the poor lad (he was then sixteen years old) found himself cast adrift in the world. He went to his brother Lawrence, in Richmond, and became his pupil. When, two years later (in 1801), Lawrence removed to Norfolk, Va., Thomas had acquired con- siderable skill in miniature-painting. In Norfolk he became acquainted with Henry Bembridge, who gave him his first lesson in oil-painting. After a season of study in Norfolk Thomas returned to Richmond, where his brother had preceded him, and remained in that city until after Lawrence's death, in 1805-6. He theu went to New York, and received some in- struction from Turnbull and Jarvis. While in New

York he painted a portrait of Mrs. Merry ( afterward Mrs. Wignell, and later, still, Mrs. Warren), at that time the most popular actress in America. From New York, Sully went to Boston, to study with Stuart, and finally came back to settle in Philadelphia, his first home in America.

The young artist, who had taken unto himself a wife, found the times very dull in Philadelphia. Portrait-painting barely supported the young ménage, and Thomas was dreaming that dream of all young American artists, a visit to Europe, where he could perfect his taste by the study of the old masters. Fortunately for Sully, he had a warm and true friend in Benjamin Wilcocks. This gentleman succeeded in interesting six others in subscribing each two hundred dollars toward a fund to send the artist to London, each subscriber to be repaid with a picture copied by Sully from some of the old masters. Leaving the greater part of the fourteen hundred dollars thus raised with his wife for her maintenance

Jeremiah Paul is said by Jarvis to have been paint- ing in Philadelphia about the year 1800, in partner- ship with Pratt, Clark (a miniature-painter), and Rutter (a sign-painter). Jarvis said, "They all would | during his absence, Sully went to Liverpool in 1809. occasionally work at anything ; for at that time there were many fire-buckets and flags to be painted. When Stuart painted Washington for Bingham, Paul thought it no disgrace to letter 'the books.'"

showed a strong disposition toward art; one of them, to a friend immediately after his arrival in the

He had very little money, and he intended to follow a complete course of study in London. This was a difficult undertaking, but the young artist was frugal, prudent, and industrious ; he accomplished it. He had from William Rawle a letter of introduction to Benjamin West, and was sure of a kind reception from that generous artist. But he first went to de- liver another letter of recommendation to the art- student, Charles B. King. Kind fate had led him strange city. The following passage from Dunlap tells us more of this spontaneous friendship and of the character of the two friends than we could learn in a volume of particulars : "When Sully first saw King in England, there was an immediate reciprocity of feeling that produced a frank interchange of thought, without hesitation or disguise. King had been some years studying in London, and could ap- preciate Sully's inexperience. 'How long do you intend staying in England?' 'Three years, if I can.' ' And how much money have you brought with you ?' 'Four hundred dollars.' ' Why, my good sir, that is not enough for three months. I'll tell you what, I am not ready to go home, my funds are almost ex- pended, and before I saw you I had been contriving a plan to spin them out and give me more time. Can you live low ?' ' All I want is bread and water.' ' O, then, you may live luxuriously, for we will add potatoes and milk to it. It will do. We will hire these rooms, they will serve us both. We will buy a stock of potatoes, take in bread and milk daily, keep our landlady in good humor, and (by the by) conceal from her the motive for our mode of life by a little present now and then, and work like merry fellows.' And so they did, thus making themselves excellent artists by a system of labor, economy, and inde- pendence as honorable as it was efficacious."

With such determination, and such a friend to

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guide and counsel him, Sully could not fail to make a profitable use of his time. King introduced him to the council chamber of the Royal Academy, and the first impressions made upon the inexperienced young American, and which he consigned to a note- book, reveal a keenness of observation seldom met with. A student who could be thus impressed by the works of famous painters was a true artist, worthy of a place among those whose peculiar gifts and faults he could so well understand and analyze.

Here are Sully's remarks upon the pictures de- posited by the academicians on their election, and which Mr. Dunlap quotes "by permission :" "The room is well stocked with works by Reynolds, Gains- borough, Fuseli, Stubbs, West, Lawrence, Owen, and many others. Owen's man- ner pleases me much. It is cool, broad, and firm, in some respects like Rey- nolds. The color is laid on in great body and with large brushes, so that no markings or hatchings are visible. His coloring is cool in the lights and warm in the shadows, beginning from almost pure white to vermilion tints to the cool half-tint, from that grad- uated to a greenish half- tint which looks like ochre-black and vermilion, and which perhaps is ren- dered more green when finished by glazing with asphaltum, the main shade of black and vermilion broken with the green tint. In some places Indian-red is used instead of vermil- ion.

Trastully

"Gainsborough's man- ner struck me as being exactly as Reynolds describes it. There is some re- semblance to it in Stuart's manner, only that Stuart is firmer in the handling. His dead colorings seem cool and afterward retouched with warm colors, used then so as to resemble the freedom of water-color painting. Many light touches of greenish and yellow tints are freely used, and although on inspection the work looks rugged and smeared, and scratched, yet, at a distance, it appeared to me the most nat- ural flesh in the room. The specimens of Reynolds' pencil disappointed, and Opie's seemed raw, crude, and dirty ; Copley more hard and dark than usual ; Lawrence's too much loaded with paint, and the red and yellow overpowering. The ceiling of this room is painted by West and Angelica Kaufman, by far the most delicate coloring I have yet seen

of the President's, and Angelica has closely imitated it."

Sully's introduction to West was beneficial in more than one sense to the young artist. The venerable painter received him with fatherly kindness, showed him his pictures, and gave him excellent advice ; but very soon he did more, he rendered him an important service. Sully had to fulfill his engagement with his Philadelphia friends by painting seven copies of pic- tures by the old masters, and although he had been introduced to many artists and John Hare Powel, of Philadelphia, who was then in London, had obtained for him access to many fine collections, he had no opportunity of copying pictures. He was making up his mind to go to Paris, where students have free access to the artistic treas- ures collected by the gov- ernment and may work as long as they choose in the galleries, when Mr. West, hearing of his difficulties, put his whole collection, old and new, at his service. Sully painted the seven copies, according to agree- ment. He then obtained an order from John Coates, of Philadelphia, for copies of certain landscapes in possession of the Penn family, which helped to replenish his almost empty purse. He finally returned to Philadelphia in 1810, having remained only nine months in London. But he had made the most of his time ; he had worked hard, had seen the best collections of paintings in the British metropolis, and had studied with keen judgment and critical eye the manner of the most famous painters.

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 47

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992