Shown from the hips up, a young woman with pale skin, pink cheeks, and copper-red hair sits gazing at us in this vertical portrait painting. She has wide-set, brown eyes, a pointed chin, and her pink lips are closed with a mere hint of a smile. Curls frame her forehead and face, and the rest of her hair is pulled up at the back of her head. She sits on a chair upholstered dusky rose-pink chair with her body angled to our right. Her left arm, on our right, rests on the curved back of the chair, and her fingers are interlaced. Her white gown has a low, scooped neckline trimmed with ruffles and is tightly cinched under her bosom. A dove-gray shawl with gleaming straw-yellow accents wraps around her back and drapes loosely over her shoulders and upper arms. A rust-red cloth hangs in folds from the top edge of the painting to fill the right three-quarters of the background. It is pulled aside to the left to reveal a glimpse of a landscape with a green lawn and trees under an azure-blue streaked with white and gray clouds.
Read the visual description

Shown from the hips up, a young woman with pale skin, pink cheeks, and copper-red hair sits gazing at us in this vertical portrait painting. She has wide-set, brown eyes, a pointed chin, and her pink lips are closed with a mere hint of a smile. Curls frame her forehead and face, and the rest of her hair is pulled up at the back of her head. She sits on a chair upholstered dusky rose-pink chair with her body angled to our right. Her left arm, on our right, rests on the curved back of the chair, and her fingers are interlaced. Her white gown has a low, scooped neckline trimmed with ruffles and is tightly cinched under her bosom. A dove-gray shawl with gleaming straw-yellow accents wraps around her back and drapes loosely over her shoulders and upper arms. A rust-red cloth hangs in folds from the top edge of the painting to fill the right three-quarters of the background. It is pulled aside to the left to reveal a glimpse of a landscape with a green lawn and trees under an azure-blue streaked with white and gray clouds.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

Ann Barry

Gilbert Stuart

Date
1803/1805
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 74.3 x 61 cm (29 1/4 x 24 in.) framed: 94.8 x 81.4 x 8.2 cm (37 5/16 x 32 1/16 x 3 1/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1954.9.3
Credit line
Gift of Jean McGinley Draper
Time span
1801 to 1825
Department
CAB

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • American
  • female
  • portrait
  • Realist
  • American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century
  • Barry, Ann
Provenance

Bequeathed by the sitter's mother, Joanna Barry [d. 1811], Washington, D.C., to her nephew, James David Barry [1774-1849], Washington, D.C.;[1] by descent to George Worthen Whistler [b. 1851], Baltimore;[2] sold by G. D. Whistler at (Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 4 February 1927, no. 62); bought by (Arthur Tooth, London).[3] Sold by (Daniel H. Farr Co., New York and Philadelphia) to Edward Small Moore [1881-1948], New York, 1927;[4] his wife, Jean McGinley Moore Draper [Mrs. Charles Dana Draper, 1884/1885-1954], New York;[5] bequest 1954 to NGA. [1] Mrs. Barry died in Washington on 18 October 1811; _Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser_, 21 October 1811 (obituary). Her will (Office of Public Records, Washington) bequeathes "also to the same James D. Barry his uncles, my own and two dear childrens likenesses done by Steward. . . ." For James David Barry's dates see his obituary in the (Washington) _Daily National Intelligencer_, 16 August 1849. [2] George C. Mason, _The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart_, New York, 1879, 134; Lawrence Park, _Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of his Works, with an Account of his Life by John Hill Morgan and an Appreciation by Royal Cortissoz_, 4 vols, New York, 1926, 133. George Worthen Whistler was the great-grandson of Robert Barry, brother of James David Barry. Robert Barry's daughter Joanna married Julius Timolean Ducatel in 1824. Their daughter Mary married George William Whistler, older step-brother of painter James McNeill Whistler, in 1848. Their son George Worthen Whistler was born in 1851 (letter from Dr. Nigel Thorp, Glasgow University Library, Scotland, 19 March 1991; NGA curatorial file). According to the 1880 Baltimore census, George Worthen Whistler lived at 56 Bolton Street with his wife Esther A. and daughter Esther M. The census notes that he was "not w any business." Mrs. G.W. Whistler is listed as the owner in Museum of Fine Arts, "Portraits Painted by Stuart...taken from Mason's _Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart_," _Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart_, Boston, 1880, 30, no. 46. [3] Memo from Jeremy Rex-Parkes, archivist, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 15 March 1991 (NGA curatorial file). Daniel Farr wrote William Campbell on 24 July 1961 (NGA curatorial file) that the paintings were sold at Christie's by an owner from Lucerne, Switzerland. The buyer's name is found in an annotated copy of Christie's catalogue (copy, NGA curatorial file) and in _Art Prices Current_, N.s., vol. 6 (1926-1927), 128. [4] Sales receipt dated 15 December 1927 (NGA curatorial file); for Moore's dates see _The New York Times_, 28 September 1948 (obituary). [5] The paintings (see also NGA 1954.9.4) were first documented in the collection of Jean McGinley Moore Draper in March 1937 when they were stored at M. Knoedler & Co. in New York; letter from Melissa De Medeiros, librarian, M. Knoedler & Co., 18 January 1991 (NGA curatorial file). For Mrs. Draper's dates see _The New York Times_, 27 September 1954 (obituary).

NGA object ID 42939. 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.