Skip to main content
Collections Menu

New Web objects Portrait

Collection Info
Image Not Available

Last item added: 2017.2 Henri, Sylvester

Sort:
Filters
37 results
metadata embedded, 2020
Pieter Vanderlyn
Date: c. 1741
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.138
Text Entries: Pieter Vanderlyn emigrated from the Netherlands to New York in 1718 and served as a ship surgeon, composer, land speculator, and portrait painter of the patroons-leading Dutch landholders of the upper Hudson River Valley region-from 1730 to 1750. Vanderlyn's painting is a rigid yet tender portrayal of a mother and child. The composition demonstrates Vanderlyn's awareness of earlier Dutch portraits he may have observed in the form of prints hung in Dutch households. Despite the influence of Dutch art, the painter executed this work when the region came under British rule. American taste shifted to a preference for English-style portraits that featured more relaxed poses and gestures, modestly attempted by Vanderlyn through the suggested affection of the mother for her child.
Metadata Embedded, 2017
John Singleton Copley
Date: 1763
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.28
Text Entries: Bayley, Frank W. <i>Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley</i>. Boston, Massachusetts: Garden Press, 1910. P. 56.<br><br> Bayley, Frank W. <i>The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley: Founded on the Work of Augustus Thorndike Perkins</i>. Boston, Massachusetts: The Taylor Press, 1915. P. 154.<br><br> Park, B. N. and A. B. Wheeler. <i>John Singleton Copley, American Portraits in Oil, Pastel and Miniature with Biographical Sketches</i>. Boston, Massachusetts: Museum of Fine Arts, 1938. Text pp. 193–94; pl. 29.<br><br> Hipkiss, E. J. <i>M. and M. Karolik Collection of Eighteenth-Century American Arts</i>. Boston, Massachusetts, 1941. Ill. no. 8, p. 17.<br><br> Prown, Jules David. <i>John Singleton Copley in America, 1738–1774</i>. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1966. Fig. 118 (black & white). <br><br> <i>American Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston</i>. Vol. 1–2. Boston, Massachusetts, 1969. Vol. 1, text no. 256, p. 60; Vol. 2, fig. 39.<br><br> Adams, Henry. "Private Collector to Public Champion." <i>Portfolio Magazine</i> 5:1 (January/February 1983): 48–53. Ill. p. 52 (color).<br><br> Nochlin, Linda. <i>Woman</i>. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Evanston, Illinois: Terra Museum of American Art, 1984. No. 2, p. 12 (color).<br><br> Sokol, David M. "The Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois." <i>The Magazine Antiques</i> 126:5 (November 1984): 1156–69. Pl. I, p. 1156 (color). <br><br> Atkinson, D. Scott et al. <i>A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art</i>. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-2, p. 111 (color).<br><br> <i>Portrait of a Lady in a Blue Dress</i>, John Singleton Copley. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 1988. Ill. (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 42; ill. p. 42 (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 42; ill. p. 42 (black & white).<br><br> Davidson, Susan, ed. <i>Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation</i>. (exh. cat., National Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai Museum). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Chinese and English version; citing English version). Ill. p. 67 (color).<br><br> Davidson, Susan, ed. <i>Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation</i>. (exh. cat., The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Russian version). Ill. p. 55 (color).<br><br> Davidson, Susan, ed. <i>Art in the USA: 300 años de innovación</i>. (exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Spanish version). Ill. p. 57 (color).<br><br> <i>Art Across America</i>. (exh. cat., National Museum of Korea, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Seoul, South Korea: National Museum of Korea, 2013. (English and Korean versions). Text p. 53; ill. p. 52 (color).<br><br> <i>America: Painting a Nation</i>. (exh. cat., Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the National Museum of Korea, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Sydney, Australia: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2013. Text p. 50; ill. cat. no. 2, p. 51 (color).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. <i>Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook.</i> Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text p. 19; fig. 2, p. 20 (color).<br><br>
Metadata Embedded, 2019
John Singleton Copley
Date: 1770–72
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund
Object number: 2000.6
Text Entries: Ostensibly commissioned on the occasion of her marriage at the age of eighteen, the portrait of the young Mrs. John Stevens serves as a commemoration of her youth and beauty and of her family's wealth. Fashionable in her uncorseted, draped satin dress and an exotic "oriental" turban on her head, she balances on her leg a basket of flowers, emblematic of love, beauty and fecundity. Today, the portrait, with its inclusion of formulaic associations to the "feminine," seems ironic: already a diligent diarist, Judith Sargent later became one of Boston's most celebrated writers and an activist for women's equality. Similar in subject is Frederick MacMonnies' painting of the young, intelligent and wealthy Alice Jones. MacMonnies depicts his future wife's fashionable persona; dressed in an elaborate, feathered hat and brilliant red dress, she sits against a blue-green tapestry in his studio. Rather than using emblems to convey meaning, MacMonnies' handling of paint-the bravura brushstrokes-not only animate the composition but also suggests the intensity of the sitter's personality. Yet, MacMonnies, like Copley, concerns himself less with a character study than with the external realities of the sitter's beauty and social position.
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Rembrandt Peale
Date: after 1824
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.53
Text Entries: A bust in an oval frame shows a man with a frank and determined look on his face and his eyes fixed on the horizon.He seems to embody greatness and virtue. It is George Washington, hero of the struggle for independence and first president of the United States. Elected in 1789, he died just ten years later. Rembrandt Peale is one of the members of an illustrious family of painters who stood at the forefront of the American artistic scene at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. He is the author of great historical works, but he principally painted portraits, hoping to raise the genre to the status of a noble art. During his sojourn in France in 1810, he was able to meet Jacques-Louis David, the preeminent French history painter. After 1840, he devoted himself to variations on the portrait of George Washington, of which more than 65 versions are known today. The sitter is no ordinary man, but a hero who embodies the glory of a young nation. Unlike other portraitists of his time, Peale attached little importance to the individual details of his sitter's features and instead established a balance between physical resemblance and the idealization of a historical personage. Washington seems to emerge from the darkness and look toward the light. This portrait is surrounded by a trompe-l'oeil stone frame, here a reference to antiquity, which places Washington beyond the common man and binds him to a past that assures the unity of the country.
Child with Rose
Jacob Maentel
Date: 1825–39
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1999.92
Text Entries: Flowers and pets frequently appeared in folk portraits of children. Often these have symbolic meaning, such as the rose, a convention used to indicate the female gender. Approximately seventy-five percent of all nineteenth-century images of children are posthumous mourning portraits due to the high mortality rate of the period. The seeming weightlessness and stiff quality of this figure shown standing against a rose-tinted sky (an indicator of death) suggest this painting maybe a memorial to a daughter. Other mourning portraits feature leafless trees, drooping flowers, empty baby shoes, chairs, or cradle.
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Ammi Phillips
Date: 1827
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.56
Text Entries: Ammi Phillips, from Colebrook, Connecticut, advertised as an itinerant painter in New England newspapers, describing his ability to capture: "a correct style, perfect shadows, and elegant dresses." To promote a pleasing likeness, Phillips offered to supply costumes for his subjects-also a practice of painter Erastus Salisbury Field. Phillips developed a strong clientele base by integrating himself into various communities long enough to be considered the logical choice for portrait commissions. Phillips painted the fair-skinned, six-month old Mary Elizabeth Smith (later Mrs. S. Canfield) an only child from Orange County, New York, against the reddish-black "mulberry" colored background typical of his 1820s works. This painting, representative of the history of many folk portraits, remained in the family before entering the Terra Foundation for the Arts collection. The baby, wearing a delicately rendered white eyelet dress and bonnet, clasps a sprig of ripening strawberries, symbolizing her gender and youth. Children and adults of the nineteenth century often wore coral necklaces for adornment although they previously signified protection against illness and misfortune.
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Samuel F. B. Morse
Date: between 1831 and 1832
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Gift of Berry-Hill Galleries in honor of Daniel J. Terra
Object number: C1984.5
Text Entries: Kloss, William. <i>Samuel F.B. Morse</i>. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., Publishers in association with the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1988. Text p. 130, ill. p. 131 (color).<br><br> Reymond, Nathalie. <i>Un regard américain sur Paris</i> (<i>An American Glance at Paris</i>). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1997. Text p. 70; ill. p. 67 (color).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>The Extraordinary and the Everyday: American Perspectives, 1820–1920</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2001. Text p. 24 (checklist).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>L'Héroïque et le quotidian: les artistes américains, 1820–1920</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2001. Text p. 24 (checklist).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 50.<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 50.<br><br> Brownlee, Peter John. <i>A New Look: Samuel F. B. Morse's "Gallery of the Louvre."</i> (exh. brochure, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2011. Text, p. 3; ill. fig. 4 (color).<br><br> Brownlee, Peter John. <i>Samuel F. B. Morse’s Gallery of the Louvre and the Art of Invention</i>. (exh. cat., The Huntington Library, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Seattle Art Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Peabody Essex Museum, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, New Britain Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2014. Text p. 24, 103; ill. p. 24 (color).<br><br>
Metadata embedded, 2021
Joseph H. Davis
Date: c. 1832–38
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.30
Text Entries: <i>Two Centuries of American Folk Painting, </i>Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, February 10–April 21, 1985.<br><br> Collection Cameo companion piece, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 2000.<br><br> <i>Figures and Forms: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, </i>Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 9–July 9, 2000.<br><br> <i>A Rich Simplicity: Folk Art from the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, </i>Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 7–September 21, 2003.<br><br> <i>Visages de l'Amérique: de George Washington à Marilyn Monroe</i> (<i>Faces of America: From George Washington to Marilyn Monroe</i>), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2004 (on exhibition partial run: April 1–July 5, 2004). [exh. cat.]
Meatadata embedded, 2021
Joseph H. Davis
Date: 1833
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.31
Text Entries: Many early-nineteenth-century paintings of young adults depict courtship or engagement, as might this one. Although books commonly symbolized refinement and frequently appear in Davis's portraits, this book joins the couple, perhaps emphasizing their pending union. The unpainted background accentuates the fashionable couple's costume and coiffure which are rendered with crisp precision. The colorful decorative carpet or stenciled floor provides visual weight that helps to anchor the figures in space.
Samuel G. and Mary Vickery
Joseph H. Davis
Date: 1834
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1999.36
Text Entries: Joseph H. Davis, of New Hampshire and Maine, primarily painted profile likenesses of New England residents in watercolor on paper, a less expensive and more convenient medium to travel with than oil paint and canvas. In his distinct style, Davis rendered facial features with linear precision and objects signifying refined middle-class taste with meticulous description. Several Davis trademarks appear in this watercolor: the sitters' names and ages and the date appear in skillful calligraphic lettering along the base of the painting and a framed picture above a table-in this case, a farm-typically a reference to the sitter's home or business. Samuel wears a plain suit, which communicated respectability and personal achievement during this time of emerging American capitalism. His colorfully decorated soft cap, an accessory worn at home or in casual situations, stands in contrast to his somber costume. Mary Vickery's dress expresses prosperity through the fine delicate quality of her lace apron, her fringed red kerchief, and the rich blue gown with large puffed sleeves that were in vogue from 1825 to 1840.
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Ammi Phillips
Date: c. 1835
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.57
Text Entries: (modified anniversary publication entry) In 1809 Ammi Philips began advertising his services as a portraitist and his prolific success as a portrait painter spanned more than fifty years. Demand for portraits steadily increased with the rise of the nation's merchant and middle classes, and self-trained artists like Phillips made a living traveling from town to town painting on commission. Unlike many itinerant artists, however, Phillips often settled, with his family, in a town or village for several years at a time, only moving on when he had exhausted the possibilities for employment in that community. Although many of his works are neither signed nor dated, ongoing scholarship has carefully reconstructed Phillips' oeuvre by tracing his career through county and town records, land deeds, and a collection of official documentation that places the artist in specific regions during certain years. Stylistically linked to a period between 1830 and 1835, Girl in a Red Dress exemplifies the artist's method of using an interchangeable stock of garments and props for his portraits. The painting is one of several similar likenesses in which a young sitter wears a wide-necked red dress, coral necklace, and pulled-back hair surrounded by a dog, carpet, and berries (following the eighteenth-century portrait tradition of using emblematic attributes, Phillips' incorporation of the puppy and berries represents, respectively, the sitter's fidelity and youthful vitality). This stylistic streamlining would not only save time and money for the artist, but would also ensure that each new client would have a reasonable idea of what to expect from the finished product.
Metadata embedded, 2017
Erastus Salisbury Field
Date: c. 1838
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund
Object number: 2000.4
Text Entries: Painter Erastus Salisbury Field of Leverett, Massachusetts, enjoyed a prolific and prosperous career of sixty-five years. After brief instruction in 1824 from Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872), Field crossed New England to paint portraits of rural society figures. The 1830s were productive for Field: he refined his artistic skills, developed an increasingly personal style and obtained commissions through a network of family associations. Field painted several portraits of residents from Petersham, Massachusetts, among them the Cook and Gallond families. In this portrait said to be Clarissa Gallond Cook, Field skillfully portrayed the sitter's prominent brow and long nose as well as her modishly styled hair of the mid-1830s. The unusual background shows an unidentifiable port city, perhaps along the Hudson River where the Cook family sailed their merchant schooner, the "Sarah Taintor." Instead of a traditional feminine landscape setting, the female sitter is posed before a background suggestive of trade and industry more typically found in male portraits. A similarly provocative background appears in a Field portrait from the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. The identification of the sitter remains in question. She may be one of Clarissa's sisters, Almira Gallond Moore or Louisa Gallond Cook, who also married into the Cook family.