A Painter and Visitors in a Studio

Charles Henry Hart [1847-1918], New York, by 1915;[1] consigned in 1915 to (Frank W. Bayley, Boston) as by Washington Allston;[2] sold to Thomas Benedict Clarke [1848-1931], New York; (his sale, American Art Association, New York, 7 January 1919, no. 27); Arthur Meeker [1866-1946], Chicago; bought back by Clarke through (M. Knoedler & Co., London, New York, and Paris) in 1924; 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 1947 to NGA. [1] Charles Henry Hart was a former director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1882-1902) and for many years covertly a picture dealer. About 1911 he became associated with Thomas Benedict Clarke, a New York collector and "gentleman-dealer," for whose gallery (Art House, near Fifth Avenue) Hart located and expertised American portraits. Before selling the painting to Clarke, Hart, who had probably devised its attribution to Washington Allston, also produced an imaginative account of its early provenance. According to a handwritten note (in NGA curatorial files), it was said to have been inherited by Gilbert Stuart's daughter who later sold it to one Uriah Bulkley, who bequeathed it to his daughter, Hetty Harrison of Southport (Conn.), who in turn left it to her daughter, Lora Harrison, from whom Hart supposedly acquired it by 1915. The complicated, unverifiable account seems designed to support the identification of the picture's subject and its attribution to Allston. In fact, nothing is definitely known of its history before 1915 when it was part of Hart's stock-in-trade. [2] According to Charles Henry Hart's note (in NGA curatorial files): "On the right Allston sits beside the canvas with palette set and brushes in his left hand. Leaning on his chair is wife of Stuart in center of picture with back to front and head in profile looking at Allston sits Stuart with drawing in his hand. About Stuart are grouped his three daughters who grew to womanhood. Emma Stebbins with child in her arms, Ann and Jane. To the left were grouped three men entering the room. One from the likeness to him of the child in Mrs. Stebbins arms is doubtless Stebbins, while another with a portfolio in his hands resembles the portraits of Gilbert Stuart Newton, the only child of G.S. in whom he seems to have taken much interest."