Leslie Pease Barnum, 1876

Provenance

The sitter [1846-1915]; by inheritance to his sister, Louise Barnum Robbins, Adrian, Michigan; by inheritance 1918 to the sitter's niece, Mrs. Arthur L. Fuller, Chicago;[1] Richard Creifelds; sold 13 February 1919 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[2] his estate;[3] sold as part of the Clarke collection 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1942 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1924

Exhibition of Portraits by Early American Portrait Painters, The Union League Club, New York, February 1924, no. 11.

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.

1943

American Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1943.

1953

American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1953.

1955

American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1955.

1967

American Painting, Art Resources Traveler (Artmobile), Illinois, 1967.

Technical Summary

The support is a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric that has been lined. Under the thick layers of paint the ground appears to be white and very thinly applied. In the layers of paint the brushstrokes are strong and expressive and there is evidence of wet-into-wet application, especially in the beard. X-radiography reveals the portrait of a woman beneath the present portrait. Whether this earlier painting was by Duveneck is unclear, for its handling is quite different, with more finely blended brushstrokes. In several places details from the first portrait were incorporated by the artist into the subsequent painting; this is most evident in the eyebrows, which are actually exposed areas of the painting below. The painting is generally in good condition, but does have some areas of loss and abrasion. The thick and discolored varnish obscures the image significantly, especially in the darkest areas.

Bibliography

1928

Barker, Virgil. "Portraiture in America before 1876." The Arts 13, no. 5 (May 1928): 286.

1928

Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke. Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928, unnumbered.

1928

Sherman, Frederic Fairchild. "Frank Duveneck." Art in America 16 (February 1928): 97.

1929

Antiquarian 12 (June 1929): repro. 41.

1930

Sherman 1930, 61.

1936

Heerman, Norbert. Exhibition of the Work of Frank Duveneck. Exh. cat. Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, 1936: 74.

1970

American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 50, repro.

1970

Booth, Billy Ray. "A Survey of Portraiture and Figure Paintings by Frank Duveneck." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Georgia, Athens, 1970: xiii, 85-87, repro.

1980

American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 147, repro.

1992

American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 163, repro.

1996

Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 152-154, repro.

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