Currently not on view
Mrs. Reverdy Johnson,
1840
Sully’s ledger book records that he received $1,000 for his life-size portrait of Mary Mackall Bowie Johnson, making it among his most lucrative commissions. Mary was the wife of Reverdy Johnson, U.S. attorney general, Maryland senator, and among the most celebrated lawyers of his day. Although personally opposed to slavery, he represented the slave-owning defendant in the infamous Dred Scott case of 1857, which held that slaves could not be considered citizens even in free states and was a significant impetus to the Civil War. Sully’s romantic image of Mrs. Johnson betrays no hint of such worldly concerns, depicting her in a vaguely classical setting that imparts a desirable air of timelessness to the portrait, a formula that helped make the Philadelphia-based artist one of the most successful of the Jacksonian era.
More Context
Handbook Entry
Thomas Sully’s "Account of Pictures" records that his life-size portrait of Mary Mackall Bowie Johnson was executed in Baltimore and Philadelphia during the summer of 1840, and that he received $1,000 for the picture, making it among his most lucrative commissions. Mary was the wife of Reverdy Johnson, U.S. attorney general, senator, and among the most celebrated lawyers of his day. Although personally opposed to slavery, he represented the slave-owning defendant in the infamous <em>Dred Scott</em> case, which confirmed the status of slaves as property and was a significant impetus to the Civil War. Sully’s romantic image of Mrs. Johnson typically betrays no hint of such worldly concerns, depicting her in an elegant and classicizing setting whose indistinctness imparts a desirable air of timelessness to the portrait, a formula that helped make the Philadelphia-based artist one of the most successful of the Jacksonian era.
Information
1840
United States, Maryland, Baltimore
Ex-coll. Mrs. Alfred Hodder, Princeton, NJ (descendant of sitter)
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F. J. Mather, "American paintings at Princeton University," <em>Record of the Museum of Historic Art, Princeton University</em> 2, no. 2 (1943): p. 2-15., p. 10
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Donald D. Egbert, <em>Princeton Portraits,</em> (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947)., fig. 222, pp 317-329
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Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones,<em> Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, </em>(Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 271 (illus.)
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John Wilmerding et al., <em>American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors</em>, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 330, checklist no. 694
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<em>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection</em> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 331 (illus.)
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<em>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </em>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 201
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