Portrait of a Lady
c. 1770/1775
Painter
Artwork overview
-
Medium
oil on canvas
-
Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 93.3 x 71.8 cm (36 3/4 x 28 1/4 in.)
framed: 108.9 x 88.6 x 6.4 cm (42 7/8 x 34 7/8 x 2 1/2 in.) -
Accession
1947.17.48
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
(Rose M. [Mrs. Augustus] de Forest, New York); sold 19 September 1922 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York, as a portrait of Ruth Cunningham by Robert Feke;[1] sold by Clarke's executors to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), from whom it was purchased 29 January 1936, as part of the Clarke collection, by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift to NGA, 1947.
[1] According to 1928 Clarke exhibition catalogue annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library). The provenance from Nathaniel Cunningham of Cambridge, Massachusetts, brother of the supposed sitter, supplied by the dealer, de Forest, is suspect and cannot be verified; see undated note by John Hill Morgan in NGA curatorial files.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1923
Exhibition of Portraits by Early American Portrait Painters, The Union League Club, New York, 1923, no. 5, as Ruth Cunningham by Robert Feke.
1926
A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Early American Portrait Painters, The Century Association, New York, 1926, no. 3, as Ruth Cunningham by Robert Feke.
1928
Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928-1931, unnumbered and unpaginated catalogue, as Ruth Cunningham by Robert Feke.
1943
New England Painting, 1700-1775, Worcester Art Museum, 1943, no cat.
1969
Extended loan for use by the Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C., 1969-1973.
1989
Extended loan to Blair House, Washington, D.C., 1989-1990.
Bibliography
1923
Sherman, Frederic F. "Four Examples of American Portraiture." Art in America 11 (1923): 328-333, repro. 329.
1928
Lee, Cuthbert. "The Thomas B. Clarke Collection of Early American Portraits." American Magazine of Art 19 (1928): 300, repro. 296.
1930
Bolton, Theodore and Henry Lorin Binsse. "Robert Feke, First Painter to Colonial Aristocracy." The Antiquarian 15 (1930): 35, repro.
Foote, Henry Wilder. Robert Feke. Cambridge, Mass., 1930: 74-75, 105, 137-138, 211, 213.
1942
Sawitsky, William. Matthew Pratt 1734-1805. New York, 1942: 48-50, pl. 13, details 42, 43.
1943
Burroughs, Alan. Review of Matthew Pratt by Sawitsky 1942. In The Art Bulletin 25 (1943): 280.
1970
American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 142, repro., as by Unknown American.
1980
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 287, repro., as by Unknown American.
1992
Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 300-301, repro. 300.
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 436.
Inscriptions
falsely signed and dated, upside down on left-hand page of book: R Feke [word illegible] / 1748
Wikidata ID
Q20178513