New Web objects Portrait

Jonathan Adams Bartlett

Date: c. 1840

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.14

Text Entries: Roughly contemporary, these two portraits each depict a member of the artist's family. Jonathan Adams Bartlett's "likeness" of his sister, Harriet, is exceptional in its inclusion of books-both in her hand and stacked on the table-a nod to the intellectual realm most associated with men. Though fashionably rouged and coifed, Harriet is nevertheless portrayed as actively seeking knowledge: her over-the-shoulder look at the viewer seems to indicate an interruption of activity-a moment captured-additionally emphasized by the tassel caught in mid-swing behind her. Likewise, Thomas Sully portrays his daughter Blanch with a fashionable hairstyle and headdress, which serve in effect to "crown" her head. Sully executed this canvas soon after returning home from painting the commissioned portrait of the young Queen Victoria. Interestingly, the twenty-one year old Blanch accompanied her father to London and often modeled in the queen's stead between sessions. The painting of Blanch serves as a visual poem to her intelligence, beauty and charm. Like Bartlett, Sully relied on visual symbols to convey an inner truth of individual character.