Shown from the hips up, a light-skinned woman with deeply flushed cheeks sits in an armchair, looking at us from under raised and pointed eyebrows in this vertical portrait painting. Her body is angled to our right but she turns to look at us with dark eyes lined with a few wrinkles. She has a long, pointed nose, slightly sagging jowls, and her thin, pale pink lips are pressed together in a line. Ringlets of chestnut-brown hair curl onto her forehead from under a frilly white bonnet that frames her face. The bonnet is tied with a wide, white ribbon around the top. The woman’s beet-red gown is cut low but her chest is covered with opaque white fabric that reaches to the frilled collar high on her neck. A sheer white shawl decorated with a pattern of scrolling, stylized leaves and vines drapes across her shoulders. Her right hand, closer to us, rests in her lap. The chair fills the width of the painting, and the woman almost fills the height. The arm of the chair is edged in wood, and the upholstery is patterned with mustard yellow, harvest gold, and tawny brown. The background lightens from dark brown in the upper left corner to tan in the lower right.
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Shown from the hips up, a light-skinned woman with deeply flushed cheeks sits in an armchair, looking at us from under raised and pointed eyebrows in this vertical portrait painting. Her body is angled to our right but she turns to look at us with dark eyes lined with a few wrinkles. She has a long, pointed nose, slightly sagging jowls, and her thin, pale pink lips are pressed together in a line. Ringlets of chestnut-brown hair curl onto her forehead from under a frilly white bonnet that frames her face. The bonnet is tied with a wide, white ribbon around the top. The woman’s beet-red gown is cut low but her chest is covered with opaque white fabric that reaches to the frilled collar high on her neck. A sheer white shawl decorated with a pattern of scrolling, stylized leaves and vines drapes across her shoulders. Her right hand, closer to us, rests in her lap. The chair fills the width of the painting, and the woman almost fills the height. The arm of the chair is edged in wood, and the upholstery is patterned with mustard yellow, harvest gold, and tawny brown. The background lightens from dark brown in the upper left corner to tan in the lower right.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

Abigail Smith Adams (Mrs. John Adams)

Gilbert Stuart

Date
1800/1815
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 73.4 x 59.7 cm (28 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.) framed: 97.5 x 84.8 x 10.8 cm (38 3/8 x 33 3/8 x 4 1/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1954.7.2
Credit line
Gift of Mrs. Robert Homans
Time span
1776 to 1800
Department
CAB

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • American
  • female
  • portrait
  • Realist
  • American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century
  • Adams, Abigail Smith (Mrs. John)
Provenance

John Quincy Adams [1767-1848], Quincy, Massachusetts; his son, Charles Francis Adams [1807-1886], Boston, Massachusetts; his son, Brooks Adams [1848-1927], Boston, Massachusetts; his niece, Abigail Adams Homans [Mrs. Robert Homans, 1879-1974];[1] gift 1954 to NGA. [1] For Mrs. Homans' dates see _The New York Times Biographical Service_, 24 vols. (and continuing), New York, 1969-, 5:222.

NGA object ID 42934. 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.