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This painting depicts a woman from the shoulders up, her head turned to face us. She has light skin, large eyes, a long nose, and rosy cheeks. Her lips are red and set in a neutral expression. Her brown hair is styled in curls under a large black hat with white feathers. She wears a garment with a sheer collar, a jeweled brooch, and white fur around her shoulders. The background is a dark, muted gradient of brown tones, with some dark blue and dark red, fading to cream at the bottom of the painting.
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This painting depicts a woman from the shoulders up, her head turned to face us. She has light skin, large eyes, a long nose, and rosy cheeks. Her lips are red and set in a neutral expression. Her brown hair is styled in curls under a large black hat with white feathers. She wears a garment with a sheer collar, a jeweled brooch, and white fur around her shoulders. The background is a dark, muted gradient of brown tones, with some dark blue and dark red, fading to cream at the bottom of the painting.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

Ann Biddle Hopkinson (Mrs. Francis Hopkinson)

Thomas Sully

Date
1834
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 51 x 44.3 cm (20 1/16 x 17 7/16 in.) framed: 74.9 x 67.3 x 10.2 cm (29 1/2 x 26 1/2 x 4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1942.8.32
Credit line
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Time span
1826 to 1850
Department
CAB
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • American
  • female
  • portrait
  • Realist
  • American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II [M-Z]
  • Hopkinson, Ann Biddle
Provenance

The sitter's daughter, Emily Hopkinson Scovel [1839-1883]; her daughter, Florence Scovel Shinn [b. 1871], New York; purchased 11 April 1918 by Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[1] his estate; 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. [1] Acquisition date recorded for the pendant painting by Sully, _Francis Hopkinson_ (NGA 1942.8.33), and probably also the acquisition date for this painting. This information is according to a 1928 Clarke exhibition catalogue annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library).

NGA object ID 1126. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.