Paintings in the Colonial Williamsburg collection

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1996 by Lauren Suber

The icons of the collection are well known: Gilbert Stuart's portraits of the first three American presidents and Charles Wilson Peale's full-length portrait of George Washington at the Battle of Princeton. Other, less publicized paintings are guaranteed to raise an eyebrow, and it is my favorites among them that are the focus here.

An intimate likeness created for private remembrance rather than public spectacle is a portrait traditionally thought to portray Mary Habersham by Jeremiah Theus [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE I OMITTED]. The royal governor of Georgia James Habersham (1712-1775) had three daughters named Mary, two of whom died young. It is presumed this portrait represents one of the two, for the sitter drops wilted flower petals and wears cherub-like drapery, both of which were fitting symbols in posthumous portraits. The portrait is probably one of the seven Habersham family portraits by Theus that James Habersham acknowledged receiving in a letter to Theus dated July 31, 1772.(2) The painting is an excellent example of the artist's work and reveals how one colonial family dealt with infant mortality.

Rather than a celebration of an individual life, The True Picture of Mary-Sabina [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE III OMITTED] is a scientific rendering of an interesting human specimen, portraying a child afflicted with vitiligo, a disease of the pigmentation. Thinkers in the age of enlightenment explored this phenomenon is considering whether all men were of the same species or whether various races formed separate species, some superior to others.(3) In a region where masters were white and slaves were black, where did this child fit in?

The perception of racial differences was still current in 1787 when Thomas Jefferson wrote his Notes on the state of Virginia, which modern critics have sometimes vilified as racist owing to his descriptions of the characteristics of blacks. In the little-known portrait shown in Plate IV, Jefferson is holding the book, which he wrote in response to Europeans' questions about America. The portrait has been attributed since at least 1938 to Bass Otis (1784-1861), but this is doubtful given the high quality of signed portraits by Otis. More likely an unidentified artist copied it either from Otis's original signed canvas or from the engraving after that painting by John Neagle (1796-1865) or John B. Neagle (c. 1796-1866).(4) Whatever its origin, the lively linearity and mellow tones of the portrait offer a pleasing contrast to Stuart's portrait of Jefferson [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE V OMITTED], one of the masterpieces in the collection. That starkly riveting likeness celebrates both the dignity of the subject and the deftness of the painter. Indeed, it has been argued that this is Stuart's life portrait of 1805, rather than the canvas jointly owned by Monticello, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.(5)

Jefferson himself might have enjoyed the curatorial debate occasioned by A Negro Smoking a Pipe [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE VI OMITTED] when the painting became available. The curators wondered whether it represents a real or fictitious person, whether the painter was white or black, and what cultural bias it conveys. The painting was once a wade sign for Bacons tobacconists in Cambridge, England, and clearly reflects the attitude of the dominant white culture in the early nineteenth century. Because the black man's breeches and cap appear to match period written descriptions of slaves' clothing, the painting has merit in the collection, but further conclusions about black life are risky. Archaeological evidence of clay pipes found at slave sites indicates that at least some slaves smoked. However, Jefferson, at least, did not allow his slaves to grow their own tobacco, stating, "I have ever found it necessary to confine them to such articles as are not raised on [my] farm. There is no other way of drawing a line between what is theirs & mine."(6)

The subject of another portrait in the collection, Mary Orange Rothery [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE IX OMITTED], found it necessary to take stock of her possessions because of the death of her husband, Matthew. She advertised the sale of his estate, which included a ship, land, a gristmill, and several slaves, in the Williamsburg Virginia Gazette on October 1, 1772, and noted, "As the Subscriber intends home in the Spring, she would esteem it as a Favour of all Persons indebted to the Estate to pay of[f] their respective Balances." Perhaps she commissioned the portrait to leave behind with friends in Virginia. Her identity is known from the inscription on the back, although a closer inspection reveals that John Durand, the painter of the portrait, first wrote "Marie Rother," which he later Anglicized to "Mary Rothery." This may reinforce the theory that Durand was a Frenchman working in the Colonies.

When the painting came to Williamsburg in 1991 it seemed to be in terrible condition, having suffered tears, abrasion, and the indignity of two hundred years of grime. Most fortunately, however, it had never been restored or altered in any way. Conservation has revealed a prime example of Durand's Virginia portraits.(7)