Quincy, Mass., Nov. 23, 1825.This certifies that John H. I. Browere of the city of New York, has yesterday and to-day made two Portrait bust moulds on my person and made a cast of the first which has been approved of by friends.John Adams.
Quincy, Mass., Nov. 23, 1825.
This certifies that John H. I. Browere of the city of New York, has yesterday and to-day made two Portrait bust moulds on my person and made a cast of the first which has been approved of by friends.
John Adams.
To this certificate, his son, Judge Thomas B. Adams, added a postscript:
“I am authorized by the ex-President to say that the moulds were made on his person without injury, pain or inconvenience.”
“I am authorized by the ex-President to say that the moulds were made on his person without injury, pain or inconvenience.”
The bust from the mask of old John Adams is, next to that of Jefferson, the most interesting of Browere’s works. I do not mean for the subject, but for its truthful realism. There is an unhesitating feeling of real presence conveyed by Browere’s busts that is given by no other likeness. They present living qualities and characteristics wanting in the painted and sculptured portraits of the same persons. Such a comparison is easily made in the instance of John Adams, for the same
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year as that in which Browere made his life masks, Gilbert Stuart painted his famous portrait of “John Adams at the age of ninety”; and Browere’s bust will bear comparison with Stuart’s portrait. I must tell a story connected with the painting of this portrait by Stuart, which, while a little out of place, especially as we have a chapter devoted to Gilbert Stuart, comes in better here than there. Stuart had painted a portrait of John Adams as a younger man. It is the familiar portrait of the great statesman by that artist. John Quincy Adams was desirous that Stuart should paint another of his father at the advanced age of ninety, and applied to the artist for the purpose. But Stuart was too old to go down to Quincy, and John Adams was too old to come up to Boston. Finally, Stuart agreed that he would go down to Quincy, for the purpose, if he were paid half of the price of the picture before he went. To this John Quincy Adams gladly assented, and Stuart went to Quincy and had the first sitting. Then John Quincy Adams could not get Stuart to go down for a second sitting, and, as his father was past ninety, he feared he might die before the picture was finished. He at last succeeded in getting Stuart to go down for a second sitting by paying him the balance of the price of the picture. Then the artist would not go down to finish it, and the only way John Quincy Adams got him to complete the portrait was by promising him, if he would make the journey and do the work, he wouldpay him the agreed price over again. This is only one of many illustrations of the character of the greatest portrait-painter this country has produced, and the peer of any portrait-painter who has ever lived.
Browere broke his journey from Virginia to Massachusetts by a rest at the country’s capital, and while there he took a mask of the ruling President, John Quincy Adams, and one of his young son, Charles Francis Adams. It was this young man who wrote to Browere as follows:
Washington City, October [28], 1825.The president requests me to state to Mr. Browere that he will be able to give him two hours tomorrow morning at seven o’clock at his (Mr. Browere’s) rooms on Pennsylvania Avenue. He is so much engaged at present that this is the only time he can conveniently spare for the purpose of your executing his portrait bust from life.C. F. Adams.
Washington City, October [28], 1825.
The president requests me to state to Mr. Browere that he will be able to give him two hours tomorrow morning at seven o’clock at his (Mr. Browere’s) rooms on Pennsylvania Avenue. He is so much engaged at present that this is the only time he can conveniently spare for the purpose of your executing his portrait bust from life.
C. F. Adams.
John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767, and died in the Speaker’s room of the House of Representatives at Washington, February 28, 1848. He has been called the most cultivated occupant that the Presidential chair has ever had; but his administration was unimportant, and he
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personally was the most unpopular man who has yet achieved the high office. He seems to have anticipated Whistler in the “gentle art of making enemies.”
Not the least interesting of Browere’s busts is the youthful head of Charles Francis Adams, made when Mr. Adams had just passed his eighteenth birthday, he having been born August 18, 1807, in Boston, where he died November 21, 1886. The services of Mr. Adams to his country, as minister to England from 1861 to 1868, covering the entire period of the war between the States, can never be forgotten or overestimated, and will remain among the foremost triumphs of American diplomacy.
It is certainly of curious interest to have busts of three generations, in one family, made by the same hand and within a few days of each other, as is the case with Browere’s casts of John, John Quincy, and Charles Francis Adams.
“JIMMY” MADISON and his wife “Dolly” were prominent characters in social as well as in public life. He early made a name for himself by his knowledge of constitutional law, and acquired fame by the practical use he made of his knowledge, in the creation of the Constitution of the United States, and in its interpretation in the celebrated letters of the “Federalist.” With the close of Washington’s administration Madison determined to retire to private life, but shortly before this he met the coy North Carolina Quakeress, Dorothea Payn. She was at the time the young widow of John Todd, to whom she had been married not quite a year, and Madison made her his wife.
James Madison was born in 1751 and Dorothea Payn in 1772, but the score and one years’ difference in their ages did
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not prevent them from enjoying a married life of two score and two years of unclouded happiness. Madison died in 1836, and was survived by Mrs. Madison for thirteen years.
Madison’s temperament, like that of his young bride, was tuned to too high a pitch to be contented with quietness after the excitement incident to his earlier career. Therefore his retirement, like stage farewells, was only temporary, and he became afterward the fourth President of the United States. As we have seen, it was Madison who brought Browere to the notice of Jefferson, and Browere was commended to Madison in the following letter from General Jacob Brown, the land hero of the war of 1812, and later Commander-in-chief of the Army of the United States:
Washington City, Oct. 1st, 1825.My Dear Sir:Mr. Browere waits on you and Mrs. Madison with the expectation of being permitted to take your portrait busts from the life. As I have a sincere regard for him as a gentleman and a scholar, and great confidence in his skill as an artist (he having made two busts of myself), in the art which he is cultivating, I name him to you with much pleasure as being worthy of your encouragement and patronage. I am interested in having Mr. Browere take your likeness, for I havelong been desirous to obtain a perfect one of you. From what I have seen and heard of Mr. Browere’s efforts to copy nature, I hope to receive from his hands that desideratum in a faithful facsimile of my esteemed friend ex-President Madison. Be pleased to present my most respectful regards to Mrs. Madison, and believe me alwaysYour most devoted friend,Jacob Brown.
Washington City, Oct. 1st, 1825.
My Dear Sir:
Mr. Browere waits on you and Mrs. Madison with the expectation of being permitted to take your portrait busts from the life. As I have a sincere regard for him as a gentleman and a scholar, and great confidence in his skill as an artist (he having made two busts of myself), in the art which he is cultivating, I name him to you with much pleasure as being worthy of your encouragement and patronage. I am interested in having Mr. Browere take your likeness, for I havelong been desirous to obtain a perfect one of you. From what I have seen and heard of Mr. Browere’s efforts to copy nature, I hope to receive from his hands that desideratum in a faithful facsimile of my esteemed friend ex-President Madison. Be pleased to present my most respectful regards to Mrs. Madison, and believe me always
Your most devoted friend,
Jacob Brown.
From this introduction Browere seems to have gained the friendship of Mr. and Mrs. Madison, who took more than an ordinary interest in the artist and his family. They were on terms of familiar intercourse, and an infant, born to Mrs. Browere, July 3, 1826, was, by Mrs. Madison’s permission, named for her. Some years later this child accompanied her parents on an extended visit to Montpelier.
That Madison was satisfied with the result of Browere’s skill is shown by the following:
Per request of Mr. Browere, busts of myself and of my wife, regarded as exact likenesses, have been executed by him in plaister, being casts made from the moulds formed on our persons, of which this certificate is given under my hand at Montpelier, 19, October, 1825.James Madison.
Per request of Mr. Browere, busts of myself and of my wife, regarded as exact likenesses, have been executed by him in plaister, being casts made from the moulds formed on our persons, of which this certificate is given under my hand at Montpelier, 19, October, 1825.
James Madison.
“DOLLY” MADISON Age 53“DOLLY” MADISONAge 53
Mr. and Mrs. Madison each submitted to Browere’s process a second time, which is sufficient evidence that the ordeal was not severe and hazardous. The bust of Madison is very fine in character and expression, but that of Mrs. Madison is of particular interest, as being the only woman’s face handed down to us by Browere. Her great beauty has been heralded by more than one voice and one pen, but not one of the many portraits that we have of her, from that painted by Gilbert Stuart, aged about thirty, to the one drawn by Mr. Eastman Johnson, shortly before her death, sustains the verbal verdict of her admirers; and now the life mask by Browere would seem to settle the question of her beauty in the negative.
“Dolly” Madison was in her fifty and third year when Browere made his mask of her face, and she lived on for a quarter century. She has always been surrounded by an atmosphere of personal interest, not so much for what she was as for what she was supposed to be. She doubtless possessed a charm of manner that made her a most attractive hostess at the White House during her reign of eight years, in which particular she shares the laurels with the winsome wife of Mr. Cleveland.
THE last of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, to be gathered to his fathers, was the distinguished Marylander, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who so signed his name to distinguish himself from a younger kinsman of the same name, his object being merely purposes of convenience, and not the patriotic purpose of identifying himself to the British, as is commonly stated. Charles Carroll was not a member of the Continental Congress when the Declaration of Independence was adopted, but took his seat a fortnight afterward, in time to sign the instrument with the rest of the sitting delegates, when it was placed before them on August 2, 1776.
Mr. Carroll died November 14, 1832, in his ninety-sixth
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year, and his last public act was to lay the corner-stone of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on July 4, 1828. From the description of his personal appearance at this time, as given by Hon. John H. B. Latrobe, it would seem as if it had been written of Browere’s bust, so true is Browere’s work to the life. Mr. Latrobe says: “In my mind’s eye I see Mr. Carroll now—a small, attenuated old man, with a prominent nose and receding chin, [and] small eyes that sparkled when he was interested in conversation. His head was small and his hair white, rather long and silky, while his face and forehead were seamed with wrinkles.”
At the present time, when foreign matrimonial alliances of high degree, with American women, are of almost daily occurrence, it is interesting to note that among the first American women to marry into the nobility of England were three granddaughters of the “signer,” Charles Carroll of Carrollton. They were the children of his daughter, Mrs. Caton, and became respectively the Marchioness of Wellesley, the Duchess of Leeds, and Lady Stafford.
Browere, when he presented himself to Mr. Carroll for the purpose of making his mask, was armed with the following letter from the eminent scientist, Doctor Samuel Latham Mitchill, which contains the super-added endorsements of Archibald Robertson, Richard Riker and M. M. Noah:
New York, July 8, 1825.My dear Sir:I approve your design of executing a likeness in statuary of the Honorable Charles Carroll of Carrollton. When you shall present yourself to him within a few days, I authorize you to employ my testimony in favor of your skill, having submitted more than once to your plastic operation. I know that you can perform it successfully without pain and within a reasonable time. The likenesses you have made are remarkably exact, so much so that they may be truly called facsimile imitations of the life. Your gallery contains so many specimens of correct casts that not only common observers, but even critical judges bear witness to your industry, genius and talents. I foresee that your collection of busts already well advanced and rapidly enlarging, will, if your labors continue, become a depositary of peculiar and intrinsic value. Without instituting any invidious comparison between sister arts, the professional branch under which you address Mr. Carroll, possesses, in my humble opinion, all the superiority that sculpture exercises over music and painting.Yours, with kind feelings and fervent wishes for success,Samuel L. Mitchill.
New York, July 8, 1825.
My dear Sir:
I approve your design of executing a likeness in statuary of the Honorable Charles Carroll of Carrollton. When you shall present yourself to him within a few days, I authorize you to employ my testimony in favor of your skill, having submitted more than once to your plastic operation. I know that you can perform it successfully without pain and within a reasonable time. The likenesses you have made are remarkably exact, so much so that they may be truly called facsimile imitations of the life. Your gallery contains so many specimens of correct casts that not only common observers, but even critical judges bear witness to your industry, genius and talents. I foresee that your collection of busts already well advanced and rapidly enlarging, will, if your labors continue, become a depositary of peculiar and intrinsic value. Without instituting any invidious comparison between sister arts, the professional branch under which you address Mr. Carroll, possesses, in my humble opinion, all the superiority that sculpture exercises over music and painting.
Yours, with kind feelings and fervent wishes for success,
Samuel L. Mitchill.
GILBERT MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE, who had fought side by side with Washington at Brandywine and at Yorktown, made his third and last visit to the United States in 1824. Landing at Castle Garden, in New York, on August 15th of that year, he set sail thirteen months later, on September 7th, 1825, to return to France, in the frigateBrandywine. He came as the invited guest of the nation, and during his sojourn here travelled over the whole country, visiting each one of the twenty-four States and receiving one continuous ovation.
At the request of the Common Council of the city of New York, La Fayette permitted Browere to make a cast of hishead, neck and shoulders on July 11, 1825. For this purpose La Fayette visited Browere’s workshop, in the rear of No. 315 Broadway, New York, accompanied by Richard Riker, Elisha W. King and Henry I. Wyckoff, a committee of the Common Council. The composition had been applied and had set, and Browere was about taking it off, when the clock struck, and one of the committee remarked that the hour for the corporation dinner in honor of La Fayette, and which he was to attend, had arrived. “Sacré bleu!” said La Fayette, starting up, “Take it off! Take it off!” which caused a piece to fall out from under one of the eyes. This accident, which necessitated a second sitting, led to some interesting correspondence.
New York, Tuesday 12 o’clock,July 12, 1825.Dear General:We have just been to see your bust by Mr. Browere and have pleasure in saying it is vastly superior to any other likeness of General La Fayette, which as yet has fallen under our inspection. Indeed it is a faithful resemblance in every part of your features and form, from the head to the breast, with the exception of a slight defect about the left eye, caused by a loss of the material of which the mould was made. This defect or deficiency Mr. Browere assures us, and we have confidencein his assertion, that he can correct in a few minutes and without giving you any pain, provided you will again condescend to his operations, for a limited time. We should much regret that this slight blemish should not be corrected, which if not done will cause to us and to the Nation a continued source of chagrin and disappointment.Most truly your FriendsRichard RikerElisha W. KingHenry I. Wyckoff.
New York, Tuesday 12 o’clock,July 12, 1825.
Dear General:
We have just been to see your bust by Mr. Browere and have pleasure in saying it is vastly superior to any other likeness of General La Fayette, which as yet has fallen under our inspection. Indeed it is a faithful resemblance in every part of your features and form, from the head to the breast, with the exception of a slight defect about the left eye, caused by a loss of the material of which the mould was made. This defect or deficiency Mr. Browere assures us, and we have confidencein his assertion, that he can correct in a few minutes and without giving you any pain, provided you will again condescend to his operations, for a limited time. We should much regret that this slight blemish should not be corrected, which if not done will cause to us and to the Nation a continued source of chagrin and disappointment.
Most truly your FriendsRichard RikerElisha W. KingHenry I. Wyckoff.
This letter was followed two days later by the following to Browere:
New York14th July 1825.Dear Sir:Every exertion has been made to get General La Fayette to spend half an hour with you, so the eye of his portrait bust be completed, but in vain. He has not had more than four hours each night to sleep, but has consented that you may take his mask in Philadelphia. He left New York this morning at eight o’clock and will be in Philadelphia on Monday next, where he will remain three days. It you can be present there on Monday or Tuesday at furthest, you can completethe matter. He has pledged his word. This arrangement was all that could be effected byYour friendElisha W. King.P. S. Previous to going get a line from the Recorder or Committee.
New York14th July 1825.
Dear Sir:
Every exertion has been made to get General La Fayette to spend half an hour with you, so the eye of his portrait bust be completed, but in vain. He has not had more than four hours each night to sleep, but has consented that you may take his mask in Philadelphia. He left New York this morning at eight o’clock and will be in Philadelphia on Monday next, where he will remain three days. It you can be present there on Monday or Tuesday at furthest, you can completethe matter. He has pledged his word. This arrangement was all that could be effected by
Your friendElisha W. King.
P. S. Previous to going get a line from the Recorder or Committee.
Upon this letter Browere has endorsed:
Note.—The subscribing artist met the General on Monday, in the Hall of Independence, Philadelphia, and Tuesday morning [July 19, 1825] from seven to eight o’clock was busy in making another likeness from the face and head of the General. At 4P.M.of that day he finished the bust under the eye of the General and his attendant, and had the satisfaction then of receiving from the General the assurance that it was the only good bust ever made of him.John H. I. Browere.
Note.—The subscribing artist met the General on Monday, in the Hall of Independence, Philadelphia, and Tuesday morning [July 19, 1825] from seven to eight o’clock was busy in making another likeness from the face and head of the General. At 4P.M.of that day he finished the bust under the eye of the General and his attendant, and had the satisfaction then of receiving from the General the assurance that it was the only good bust ever made of him.
John H. I. Browere.
The result of the second trial was a likeness so admirable and of such remarkable fidelity, that General Jacob Morton, Rembrandt Peale, De Witt Clinton, S. F. B. Morse, John A. Graham, Thomas Addis Emmet and others, came forward and enthusiastically bore witness to its being “a perfect facsimile” of the distinguished Frenchman. The written commendations
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of Peale and Morse are notably interesting as the views of two brother artists, each of whom had painted a portrait of La Fayette. Rembrandt Peale, widely known by his composite portrait of Washington, writes:
New YorkAugust 10th 1825.The singular excellence shown by Mr. Browere in his new method of executing Portrait busts from the life deserves the applause and patronage of his countrymen. The bust of La Fayette, which he has just finished, is an admirable demonstration of his talent in this department of the Fine Arts. The accuracy with which he has moulded the entire head, neck and shoulders from the life and his skill in finishing, render this bust greatly superior to any we have seen. It is in truth a “faithful and a living likeness.” Of this I may judge having twice painted the General’s portrait from the life, once at Paris and recently at Washington.Rembrandt Peale.
New YorkAugust 10th 1825.
The singular excellence shown by Mr. Browere in his new method of executing Portrait busts from the life deserves the applause and patronage of his countrymen. The bust of La Fayette, which he has just finished, is an admirable demonstration of his talent in this department of the Fine Arts. The accuracy with which he has moulded the entire head, neck and shoulders from the life and his skill in finishing, render this bust greatly superior to any we have seen. It is in truth a “faithful and a living likeness.” Of this I may judge having twice painted the General’s portrait from the life, once at Paris and recently at Washington.
Rembrandt Peale.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was, at the period of which we write, an artist of some reputation as a portrait-painter, and he was under commission, from the corporation of New York, to paint a whole-length portrait of La Fayette for the City Hall, where it now hangs. Its chief interest is as a study of costume;for if Browere’s bust is “a perfect facsimile” of La Fayette’s form and features, true to life, Morse’s portrait is a caricature. That Morse was destined to greater ends than painting mediocre portraits, was shown, a decade later, by his invention of the magnetic electric telegraph, a discovery of such importance that while millions of human beings know Morse the inventor, not a dozen perhaps ever heard of Morse the painter. He damns his own portrait of La Fayette by the following commendation of Browere’s bust:
New YorkAugust 15, 1825.Being requested by Mr. Browere to give my opinion of his bust or cast from the person of General La Fayette, I feel no hesitation in saying it appears to me to be a perfect facsimile of the General’s face.Saml. F. B. Morse.
New YorkAugust 15, 1825.
Being requested by Mr. Browere to give my opinion of his bust or cast from the person of General La Fayette, I feel no hesitation in saying it appears to me to be a perfect facsimile of the General’s face.
Saml. F. B. Morse.
These are certainly strong words coming from a rival artist and a man of Mr. Morse’s character.
John A. Graham, who published a volume to prove that Horne Tooke was the author of the Letters of Junius, was one of the leading lawyers of New York. His closing words of eulogy upon the bust of La Fayette should have been, but unfortunatelywere not, prophetic. He wrote: “I have no doubt that the name of Browere, in virtue of this bust, will live as long as the memory of La Fayette shall be beloved and respected in America.” On the contrary, the name of Browere was wholly and entirely forgotten and unknown, until brought to light, and publicly proclaimed, by the present writer, in the fall of 1897. So much for the stability of man’s reputation!
WHEN Samuel Woodworth, the author of the well-known lines to the “Old Oaken Bucket,” who was a close friend of Browere, entered the artist’s workshop and caught a glimpse of the bust of De Witt Clinton, he made a gesture, as of restraint, and pronounced these impromptu lines:
“Stay! the bust that graces yonder shelf claims our regard.It is the front of Jove himself;The Majesty of Virtue and of Power,Before which guilt and meanness only cower.Who can behold that bust and not exclaim,Let everlasting honor claim our Clinton’s name!”
“Stay! the bust that graces yonder shelf claims our regard.It is the front of Jove himself;The Majesty of Virtue and of Power,Before which guilt and meanness only cower.Who can behold that bust and not exclaim,Let everlasting honor claim our Clinton’s name!”
“Stay! the bust that graces yonder shelf claims our regard.It is the front of Jove himself;The Majesty of Virtue and of Power,Before which guilt and meanness only cower.Who can behold that bust and not exclaim,Let everlasting honor claim our Clinton’s name!”
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De Witt Clinton, who was born in 1769 and died in 1828, was the first recognized practical politician of this country. Apart from his immense service in pushing to completion the Erie canal, he was essentially a politician for what politics would yield. Consequently, he was always looked upon with distrust, and even his high private station was powerless to overcome this feeling. He posed as a connoisseur of the fine arts, was at one time President of the American Academy of Arts, and seems to have had a lofty appreciation of Browere’s work. He wrote: “I have seen and examined with attention several specimens of busts executed by Mr. Browere in plaster, and have no hesitation in saying that their accuracy is equally surprising and gratifying. I feel pleasure in recommending the fidelity of his likenesses, and the skill with which they are executed, particularly the portrait bust of General La Fayette.”
Of Clinton’s own bust the eminent Irish patriot and American advocate, Thomas Addis Emmet, wrote to Browere:
New YorkJuly 6th 1826.Sir:If my opinion as to the merits of the portrait busts I have seen of your workmanship, can be of any advantage to you, it is entirely at your service. I really think them all entitled togreat praise for fidelity of expression and accuracy of resemblance. Those of General La Fayette and Governor Clinton are, as far as I can judge, the most perfect likenesses of the originals that have as yet been presented to the public.I am, Dear Sir, your obt ServtThomas Addis Emmet.
New YorkJuly 6th 1826.
Sir:
If my opinion as to the merits of the portrait busts I have seen of your workmanship, can be of any advantage to you, it is entirely at your service. I really think them all entitled togreat praise for fidelity of expression and accuracy of resemblance. Those of General La Fayette and Governor Clinton are, as far as I can judge, the most perfect likenesses of the originals that have as yet been presented to the public.
I am, Dear Sir, your obt Servt
Thomas Addis Emmet.
HENRY CLAY, who wore the appellation, conferred upon Pitt, of “the Great Commoner,” long before it was given to Mr. Gladstone, has left behind him perhaps the most distinct personality of any of the statesmen of his era. Where Daniel Webster counted his admirers by hundreds, Henry Clay was idolized by thousands; the one appealing to the head and the other to the heart. His strongly marked features are familiar to every one, from the scores of portraits of him to be found here, there, and everywhere; while there are, living to-day, a large number of people who knew Clay in the flesh; so that Browere’s bust of him needs no perfunctory certificate to assure of its truthfulness. It is certainly human to a wonderful degree, and there could scarcely be anytruer portraiture than this, wherein we have the very features of the living man down to the minutest detail.
Clay was of striking physique. He was quite tall, nearly six feet two inches, rather sparsely built, with a crane-like neck that he endeavored to conceal by his collar and stock. He had an immense mouth, phenomenal for size as well as shape, and kindly blue eyes which were electrical when kindled. Yet he was so magnetic in his power over men that when he was defeated for the Presidency, thousands of his Whig followers wept as they heard the news.
Henry Clay was born in Hanover county, Virginia, April 12, 1777, and died at Washington, June 29, 1852, preceding his compeer Webster to the grave by only a few months. On reaching his majority, he removed to Lexington, Kentucky, which became his future home, although he was so rarely out of public life that he was comparatively little there. Having chosen the law for his profession, he was admitted to the bar, and before attaining his thirtieth year, was sent to the Senate of the United States. He was strenuous in his support of home industries, and endeavored by legislation to enforce upon legislators the wearing of homespun cloths. So ardent was he in this, that his course led to a duel with Humphrey Marshall, in which both were slightly wounded.
At the close of the war of 1812, Clay was one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate the treaty of peace with
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Great Britain, and as such signed the Treaty of Ghent. He was known as “the great Pacificator,” from his course in the events that led to the Missouri Compromise and later averted Southern “nullification.” He was an active and bitter opponent of Andrew Jackson, and supported John Quincy Adams against him for the Presidency, his reward being the portfolio of State; but there was no bargain and corruption about this business as his enemies claimed and which haunted Clay’s political career throughout the rest of his life. He was an ambitious man, and his failure to reach the goal of his ambition—the presidential chair—was a fatal blow.
Clay was undoubtedly one of the greatest orators this country has produced, and a man with much natural ability, but little study and cultivation. His name is one to conjure with in old Kentucky, and it is with a moist eye that personal reminiscences of Clay are related out there in the blue grass State, even at this day, nearly half a century after his decease.
ONE artist, and he easily the first of American painters, did not deny to Browere and his works the merit that was their due. On the contrary, he saw the fidelity and great value of these life masks, and gave practical encouragement to the maker of them by submitting to his process and by giving a certificate of approval. He did this, not so much that his living face might be transmitted to posterity, as to test the truth of the newspaper reports of the suffering and danger experienced by the venerable and venerated Jefferson, and thus by his example encourage others to go and do likewise. The result was the superb head of Gilbert Stuart, herewith reproduced from the original bust, in the Redwood Library, atNewport, Rhode Island. This noble action of Stuart must have been as light out of darkness to Browere.
Upon the completion of the mask, from which this bust was made, Stuart gave to Browere the following emphatic certificate:
BostonNovember 29th 1825.Mr. Browere, of the city of New York, has this day made a portrait bust of me from life, with which I am perfectly satisfied and which I hope will remove any illiberal misrepresentations that may deprive the nation from possessing like records of more important men.G. Stuart.
BostonNovember 29th 1825.
Mr. Browere, of the city of New York, has this day made a portrait bust of me from life, with which I am perfectly satisfied and which I hope will remove any illiberal misrepresentations that may deprive the nation from possessing like records of more important men.
G. Stuart.
The “illiberal misrepresentations” referred to were of course the reported inconveniences that Jefferson had suffered; and praise such as this, from Stuart, is, as approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley, praise indeed.
A few days afterward the Boston “Daily Advertiser” announced: “The 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.” Twodays 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
Image unavailable: GILBERT STUART Age 70GILBERT STUARTAge 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 tothe 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, astherewasno “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 hisdaily 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 Londononly 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’schef-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 hedetermined 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 inany 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 knowwhich 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, asRichard 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 offorty-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 Stuartwas 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.
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 andof 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.
There have been three officers of high rank in the United States navy bearing the name of David Porter. The first served the Continental Congress; his son, born in 1780, gave the best years of his life to his country on the sea; and his grandson, after having four times received the thanks of Congress for his services during the Civil War, died at the head of the navy, with the rank of Admiral, in 1891. David Porter, second of the name, began his naval career in action, having been, at the age of eighteen, appointed a midshipman on board the frigateConstellation, and with her, soon after, participated in the fight where the French frigateL’Insurgentewas captured by Truxtun with the loss of one man killed and two men wounded. Porter subsequently distinguished himself in the war with Tripoli, was promoted to a captaincy, and early in the war of 1812 sailed from New York, in command of theEssex, on one of the most eventful cruises ever had by a man-of-war. His first feat was to capture theAlert, in an engagement of eight minutes, without any loss or damage to his ship; and so well directed was the fire of theEssex, that theAlerthad seven feet of water in her hold when she surrendered. This was the first British war vessel taken in the conflict. Porter then turned his attention to the destruction of the