portrait bust of Gilbert Stewart, Esq., lately executed by Mr. Browere,
will be exhibited by him at the Hubard Gallery, this evening. This
exhibition is made by him for the purpose of showing that he can present
a perfect likeness, and he will prove at the same time, by the
certificate of Mr. Stewart, that the operation is without pain.” Two
days later the local press fairly teemed with laudatory notices of
Browere’s work. The Boston “American” said: “This bust has been adjudged
by all who have examined it and are acquainted with the original to be a
striking and perfect resemblance.” The “Commercial Gazette” said: “It is
a fine likeness, in truth we think the best we ever saw of any one. We
particularly enquired of Mr. Stuart’s family if he suffered by any
difficulty of breathing or if the process was in any degree painful, and
were assured that there was nothing of an unpleasant or painful nature
in it.”
Considering Stuart’s eminence in art, a position fully recognized in his
lifetime, and his irascible temper and unyielding character, such action
as his toward Browere, not only in submitting to have the mask taken,
but in certifying to it and permitting it to be publicly exhibited for
the benefit of Browere’s reputation, speaks volumes of the highest
authority in support of the workman and his work.
Stuart’s daughter, Jane, who died at Newport, in 1888, at a very
advanced age, and was as “impossible” in some respects as was her
distinguished father, remembered well the incident of the mask being
taken, and testified to its marvellous life-speaking qualities. Having
lost all knowledge of its whereabouts, she searched for years in the
hope of finding it, since she looked upon it as the next thing to having
her father before her. Finally, in the Centennial year, it was
discovered
[Illustration: GILBERT STUART
Age 70]
in the possession of Browere’s son, and was purchased by Mr. David King,
of Newport, as a present for Miss Stuart. But Miss Stuart felt that her
little cottage, so well remembered by many visitors to Newport, was no
place for so big a work, and desired that it might be placed in a public
gallery, which wish Mr. King complied with, by presenting it to the
Redwood Library, at Newport, where it may be seen by all interested in
Stuart or in Browere’s life masks. Jane Stuart is the subject of Colonel
Wentworth Higginson’s charming paper, “One of Thackeray’s Women,” in his
volume of Essays entitled “Concerning All of Us.”
Gilbert Stuart was born in what was called the Narragansett country, on
December 3, 1755. The actual place of his birth is now called Hammond
Mills, near North Kingston, Rhode Island, about nine miles from
Narragansett Pier; and the old-fashioned gambrel-roofed, low-portalled
house, in which the future artist first saw light, still stands at the
head of Petaquamscott Pond. The snuff-mill set up by Gilbert Stewart,
the father of the painter, who had come over from Perth, in Scotland, at
the suggestion of a fellow Scotchman, Doctor Thomas Moffatt, to
introduce the manufacture of snuff into the colonies, was located, by
the race, immediately under the room in which Stuart was born, both
being part of the same building, so that Stuart’s excuse for taking
snuff, that he was born in a snuff-mill, is literally true.
When four months old, the third and youngest child of the snuff-grinder
and his beautiful wife, Elizabeth Anthony, was carried, on Palm Sunday,
to the Episcopal church and baptized “Gilbert Stewart.” The significance
of this record is found in the orthography of the surname and in the
limitation of the baptismal name. Stuart’s name will be found in print
quite frequently as “Gilbert Charles Stuart,” and I have seen it as
“Charles Gilbert Stuart”; and the Jacobin leaning of his Scotch sire, is
commonly supported by the naming of the child for the last of the Royal
Stuarts, the romantic Prince Charlie. This pretty legend, built to
support unreliable tradition, is blown to the winds by the prosaic
church record, which shows that the artist’s orthography was an
assumption, and his name simply Gilbert Stewart. That this plebeian
spelling of the royal name, was not an error or accident of the scribe
who made it, is proved by signatures of the snuff-grinder which have
come down to us.
Stuart’s parents early removed to Newport, where the son had the
advantage of tuition in English and Latin, from the assistant minister
of venerable Trinity parish; but in his boyhood Stuart seems to have
shown none of those dominant characteristics which later were so
strongly developed both in the artist and in the man, unless it may be
the predilection for pranks and practical jokes that early manifested
itself.
The earliest picture that can be recognized as from the brush of Gilbert
Stuart, is a pair of Spanish dogs belonging to the famous Dr. William
Hunter, of Newport, which Stuart is said to have painted when in his
fourteenth year; and what are claimed to be his first portraits, those
of Mr. and Mrs. Bannister, have been so nearly destroyed by
“restoration,” that nothing of the original work remains to show any
merit the pictures may have possessed.
Stuart’s first instruction in art was received from Cosmo Alexander, a
Scotchman, who passed a few years in the colonies painting a number of
interesting portraits in the affected, perfunctory manner of the period.
Of Alexander nothing was known until recent investigations by the writer
discovered him to be a great-grandson of George Jamesone, whom Walpole
calls “the Vandyke of Scotland.” Alexander took Stuart, then in his
eighteenth year, back with him to Scotland, to acquire a greater
knowledge of art than was possible in the colonies at that time; and
Stuart is claimed to have been at this period a student at the
University of Glasgow. But this tradition, like that previously
mentioned, is shattered, as tradition almost always is shattered, by the
cold, unimaginative record, which fails to show his name on the
matriculation register.
Alexander died not long after reaching Edinburgh, and Stuart was left,
according to his biographers, in the care of Alexander’s friend, “Sir
George Chambers,” who “quickly followed Alexander to the grave,” leaving
Stuart without protection. But this story is manifestly without
foundation, as there _was_ no “Sir George Chambers” at the period
considered. There was, however, a Scotch painter of some repute, Sir
George Chalmers, of Cults, who had married either a sister or a daughter
of Cosmo Alexander; and this Sir George Chalmers is doubtless the person
intended, although he lived on until 1791, so that it could not have
been his demise that threw Stuart upon his own resources, which, being
few, necessitated his working his way home, on a collier, after a few
months’ absence.
Stuart returned to America from Scotland at a period of intense
excitement. The Boston Port bill had just been received, assuring what
the Stamp Act had initiated, and the tories and the patriots were being
marshalled according to their particular bias. It was not a time for the
peaceful arts. It was the time for action and for town meetings. Before
the echoes of Lexington and Concord had died away, “Gilbert Stewart the
snuff-grinder” hied himself away to Nova Scotia, leaving his wife and
family behind. At this epoch Gilbert Stuart, the future painter, was in
his twentieth year, and apparently had inherited from his father
sentiments of loyalty to the Crown, so that instead of going forth to
battle for his native land, as many no older than he did, he embarked
for England, the day before the action at Bunker Hill, with the
ostensible object of seeking the Mecca of all of our early artists, the
studio of Benjamin West.
Once in London, Stuart’s object to seek instruction in painting from
West, seems to have weakened, and he remained in the great metropolis
nearly two years before he knocked at the Newman-street door of the
kindly Pennsylvanian. These months were occupied chiefly with a sister
art in which Stuart was most proficient. He loved music more than he
loved painting--a taste that never forsook him. He played upon several
instruments, but his favorites were the organ and the flute; indeed the
story has come down that his last night in Newport, before sailing, was
spent in playing the flute under the window of one of its fair denizens.
This knowledge of music stood Stuart in good stead when an unknown youth
in an unknown land. A few days after his arrival in London, hungry and
penniless, he passed the open door of a church, through which there came
to his ear the strains of a feebly played organ. He ventured in and
found the vestry sitting in judgment upon several applicants for the
position of organist. Receiving permission to enter the competition, he
was selected for the position at a salary of thirty pounds, after having
satisfied the officials of his character, by reference to Mr. William
Grant, whose whole-length portrait Stuart afterward painted.
Having some kind of subsistence assured him by the position of organist
he thus secured, Stuart began that desultory dallying with art which
later often left him without a dry crust for his daily bread. While his
work was always serious, his temperament never was, and he seems to have
played cruel jokes upon himself, as carelessly as he did upon others.
For two years his career is almost lost to art; only once in a while did
he gather himself together to work at his painting. He had, however, to
a marked degree, that odd resource of genius which enabled him to work
best and catch up with lost time when under the spur of necessity. In
later days, with sitters besieging his door, he would turn them away,
one by one, until the larder was empty and there was not a penny left in
the purse; then he would go to work and in an incredibly short time
produce one of his masterpieces.
Such was the character, in outline, of the man who went to London to
study under West, and, after reaching the metropolis, let two years slip
by him without seeking his chosen master. Finally he went to the famous
American and was received as a pupil and as a member of the painter’s
family, in true apprentice style. Just what Stuart learned from West it
is difficult to imagine;--unless it was how not to paint. For, without
desiring or meaning to join in the hue and cry of to-day against the art
of West, but on the contrary, protesting against the clamor which fails
to consider the conditions that existed in his time and therefore fails
to do him the justice that is his due, there is surely nothing in the
work of the one to suggest anything in the work of the other.
For five long and doubtless weary years Stuart plodded under the
guidance of his gentle master until, tired of doing some of the most
important parts of West’s royal commissions, for which his remuneration
was probably only his keep and tuition, without even the chance of
glory, he broke away and opened a studio for himself in New Burlington
Street. If Stuart did gain little in art from West, he gained much of
the invaluable benefit of familiar intercourse with persons of the first
distinction, who were frequenters of the studio of the King’s painter.
This was of great advantage to the young artist when he set up his own
easel, and many of these men became his early sitters.
Stuart, while domiciled with West, drew in the schools of the Royal
Academy, attended the lectures of the distinguished William Cruikshank
on anatomy, and listened to the discourses delivered by Sir Joshua
Reynolds on painting. Later on he painted the portraits of each of these
celebrated men, and did enough individual work to indicate the quality
of the artistic stuff that was in him, awaiting an opportunity to
manifest itself. In 1777, the year Stuart went to West, he made his
first exhibition at the Royal Academy. His one contribution is entered
in the catalogue of that year merely as “A Portrait.” It is not
improbable that this was a portrait of his fellow countryman and early
friend, Benjamin Waterhouse, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who preceded
Stuart to London only a short time, and who seems to have remained the
artist’s chum during their sojourn in the English capital. A portrait of
Doctor Waterhouse, by Stuart, was given by the Doctor’s widow, to the
Redwood library, at Newport, together with Stuart’s self-portrait,
wearing a large hat, and dated on the back, 1778. These two portraits
are evidently of a contemporaneous period.
In 1779 Stuart exhibited, at the Royal Academy, three pictures: “A Young
Gentleman,” “A Little Girl,” and “A Head.” In 1781 he showed “A Portrait
from Recollection since Death,” and in 1782 made his last exhibition
there, sending a “Portrait of an Artist,” and “A Portrait of a Gentleman
Skating.” This last picture, although painted so early in his career,
has been considered Stuart’s _chef-d’œuvre_. It is a whole-length
portrait of Mr. William Grant, of Congalton, skating in St. James Park.
Mr. Grant was the early friend who bore testimony to Stuart’s character,
whereby Stuart gained the organist’s position soon after his arrival in
London; and the story has come down that Mr. Grant, desiring to help
Stuart, determined to sit for his portrait, and went to Stuart’s room
for a sitting. The day was crisp and cold, and the conversation, not
unnaturally, turned upon skating, a sport much enjoyed by both painter
and sitter, each being rarely skilful at it. Finally paints and brushes
were put away, and the two friends started forth to skate. Stuart was so
struck with the beauty and rhythm of his companion’s motion that he
determined to essay a picture of him thus engaged. The original canvas
was abandoned and a new one begun, showing Mr. Grant not merely upon
skates, but actually skating; and the latent force of the graceful
undulating motion has been rendered with a skill and ability that at
once put Stuart in the front rank of the great portrait-painters of his
day.
The remarkable merit of this picture and the wilful unreasonableness of
painters in not signing their works, were curiously shown at the
exhibition of “Pictures by the Old Masters,” held at Burlington House,
in January of 1878. In the printed catalogue of the collection this
picture was attributed to Gainsborough, and attracted and received
marked attention. A writer in the “Saturday Review,” speaking of the
exhibition, remarks: “Turning to the English school, we may observe a
most striking portrait in number 128, in Gallery III. This is set down
as ‘Portrait of W. Grant, Esq., of Congalton, skating in St. James Park.
Thomas Gainsborough, R. A. (?)’ The query is certainly pertinent, for,
while it is difficult to believe that we do not recognize Gainsborough’s
hand in the graceful and silvery look of the landscape in the
background, it is not easy to reconcile the flesh tones of the portrait
itself with any preconceived notion of Gainsborough’s workmanship. The
face has a peculiar firmness and decision in drawing, which reminds one
rather of Raeburn than of Gainsborough, though we do not mean by this to
suggest in any way that Gainsborough wanted decision in either painting
or drawing when he chose to exercise it.”
The discussion as to the authorship of this picture waxed warm, the
champions of Raeburn, of Romney, and of Shee, contending with those of
Gainsborough for the prize, which contention was only set at rest by a
grandson of the subject coming out with a card that the picture was by
“the great portrait-painter of America, Gilbert Stuart.” And to Stuart
it did justly belong.
With the success of this portrait of Mr. Grant, Stuart was launched upon
the sea of prosperity, and to himself alone, and not to want of
patronage or lack of opportunity, is due his failure to provide against
old age or a rainy day. For a while he lived like a lord, in reckless
extravagance. Money rolled in upon him, and he spent it lavishly,
without a thought for the morrow. His rooms were thronged with sitters,
and he received prices for his work second only to those of Reynolds and
of Gainsborough. He was on the best footing with his brethren of the
brush, and with Gainsborough, his senior by more than a quarter of a
century, he painted a whole-length portrait of Henry, Earl of Carnarvon,
in his robes, which has been engraved in mezzotinto by William Ward,
with the names of the two painters inscribed upon the plate. This alone
shows the estimation in which Stuart was held by his contemporaries, and
it would be most interesting to know which parts were the work of
Stuart and which were due to his famous collaborator.
About this period Boydell was in the midst of the publication of his
great Shakespeare gallery, to which the first artists of the day
contributed, and Stuart was commissioned by the Alderman, to paint, for
the gallery, portraits of the leading painters and engravers who were
engaged upon the work. Thus, for Boydell, he painted the superb
half-length portraits of his master West, and of the engravers Woollett
and Hall, now in the National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin’s Place,
London. He painted, also for Boydell, his own portrait, and portraits of
Reynolds, Copley, Gainsborough, Ozias Humphrey, Earlom, Facius, Heath,
William Sharp, Boydell himself, and several others. Stuart was an
intimate friend of John Philip Kemble, and painted his portrait several
times; one picture is in the National Portrait Gallery, and another, as
_Richard III._, which has been engraved by Keating, did belong to Sir
Henry Halford.
Other prominent sitters to Stuart in London were Hugh, Duke of
Northumberland, the Lord Percy of the Battle of Bunker Hill; Admiral Sir
John Jervis, afterward Earl St. Vincent; Isaac Barré; Dr. Fothergill,
and the Dukes of Manchester and of Leinster. From these names alone it
can be seen that Stuart was in touch with persons of the highest
consideration, and they were not only his patrons, but his friends. He
kept open house, dispensing a princely hospitality. The story has been
handed down that he led off with a dinner of forty-two, composed of the
choice spirits of the metropolis. He was so charming as a host, and had
gathered together such delightful guests, that it was suggested the same
party should meet frequently, which proposition Stuart accepted, by
arranging that six of them should dine with him each day of the week,
without special invitation, the six first arriving to be the guests of
the day, until the entire forty-two had again warmed their legs under
his mahogany. Such prodigality as this, for a young artist, shows what
Stuart’s temperament was, and points as surely to the pauper’s grave as
though it was there yawning open before him.
Stuart was five feet ten inches in height, with fine physique, brown
hair, a ruddy complexion, and strongly marked features. He dressed with
elegance, which was possible at that period, and notwithstanding his
biting sarcasm, keen wit, and searching eye, was a great favorite with
the fair sex. In his thirty-first year he selected Miss Charlotte
Coates, the daughter of a Berkshire physician, for his partner through
life, and on May 10, 1786, they were married.
Stuart remained in London until 1788, when he was induced to visit
Ireland and open a studio in Dublin. Here he kept up the same style of
living he had indulged in before he left London and was in high favor
with the Irish, painting some of his most elaborate portraits at this
time; but, although fully employed and receiving the highest prices for
his pictures, he was always without money. So poor was he, indeed, that
when he returned to this country, in 1792, he had not the means to pay
for his passage and engaged to paint the portrait of the owner of the
ship as its equivalent. He landed in New York towards the close of the
year; and although the tradition has been handed down that the cause of
his returning to America, was his desire to paint the portrait of
Washington, it seems, considering that he waited two years before
visiting Philadelphia for the purpose, that the remark of Sir Thomas
Lawrence may not have been without foundation. The latter, upon hearing
this reason assigned, is related by Leslie to have said: “I knew Stuart
well and I believe the real cause of his leaving England was his having
become tired of the inside of our prisons.” Whatever the real cause was
that brought the artist home, we may congratulate ourselves that he came
to live among us at the period that he did, for he was then in the
fulness of his powers, and the pictures that he painted between this
time and his removal to Boston, in 1805, are the finest productions of
his brush on this side of the water.
Gilbert Stuart went to reside in Philadelphia about New Year, 1795.
There he painted his famous life portraits of Washington, three in
number, but I have written so often and so much on this subject that I
shall content myself with this bare mention.[5] There also he painted
the portraits of the famous men and of the beautiful women that have
helped most to place his name so high up on the pillar of fame. That
Stuart was a master in the art of portrait-painting it needs no
argument to prove; his works are the only evidence needed, and they
establish it beyond appeal. In his portraits the men and women of the
past live again. Each individual is here, and it was Stuart’s ability to
portray the individual that was his greatest power. Each face looks at
you and fain would speak, while the brilliant and animated coloring
makes one forgetful of the past. The “Encyclopædia Britannica,” a forum
beyond dispute, says: “Stuart was pre-eminent as a colourist, and his
place, judged by the highest canons in art, is unquestionably among the
few recognized masters of portraiture.”
Stuart had two distinct artistic periods. His English work shows plainly
the influence of his English contemporaries, and might easily be
mistaken, as it has been, for the best work of Romney or of
Gainsborough. But his American work, almost the very first he did after
his return to his native soil, proclaims aloud the virility and
robustness of his independence. The rich, juicy coloring so marked in
his fine portraits painted here, replaces the tender pearly grays so
predominant in his pictures painted there. The delicate precision of his
early brush gives way to the masterful freedom of his later one. His
English portraits might have been limned by Romney or by Gainsborough,
but his American ones could have been painted only by Gilbert Stuart.
This greatest of American painters died in Boston, July 27, 1828, and
was interred in an unmarked grave in the Potter’s Field.
XIII
_David Porter_
_United States Navy_
While this country and the world are yet enthralled by the magical
victories won by the American navy over the fleets of Spain, it is
instructive to recall how the exploits of Uncle Sam’s boys, on the seas,
have always bordered on the marvellous. The doings of Paul Jones in the
Revolutionary War, and of Truxtun in the war with France; of Decatur and
of Preble in the war with Tripoli; of Bainbridge and of Stewart, and of
Hull and of Perry, in the second war with England; and of Farragut and
of Jouett and of Cushing in the war between the States, seem, each one,
too incredible to have a like successor, yet nothing heretofore in naval
warfare has approached the victories of Dewey and of Sampson. With all
these glittering names, we have still another name the peer of the best,
possessing in addition the spur of naval heredity--the name of Porter.