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Gilbert Stuart
Sarah Goodridge (born Templeton, MA 1788-died Boston, MA 1853)
1825-1827
- Medium
- watercolor on ivory
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- sight 1 7/8 x 1 5/8 in. (4.8 x 4.1 cm) oval
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Mary Elizabeth Spencer
- 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
Sarah Goodridge painted this miniature at the request of Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), who believed no one else could capture the essence of his personality. He declared it the "only true likeness" of him, and valued this work so much that he presented it to his mother, adorned with a bracelet woven from his own, and his wife's, hair. According to family letters, Stuart presented this miniature to his mother on July 21, 1827. Of the three miniatures Goodridge painted of Stuart, this was the sitter's favorite. The other two are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Conservation of this miniature was made possible through a generous grant provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
