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Mary Abigail Willing Coale
Thomas Sully (born Horncastle, England 1783-died Philadelphia, PA 1872)
1809
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 28 7/8 x 23 7/8 in. (73.2 x 60.8 cm)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, George Buchanan Coale Collection
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Thomas Sully painted Abigail Willing Coale with rosy cheeks, an alluring gaze, and supple white skin, which he accentuated with the low neckline of her gown. The artist painted her in a fur wrap that captures the color of her luminous gray-green eyes and softens the transition from the figure to the background. Sully, a skilled and successful portrait painter, wrote that “From long experience I know that resemblance in a portrait is essential; but no fault will be found with the artist, (at least by the sitter,) if he improve the appearance.”
