Benjamin Tappan

The sitter's son, Lewis Tappan [1788-1873], Brooklyn, New York;[1] his daughter, Julianna Aspinwell Tappan [b. 1816], Brooklyn, New York;[2] bequeathed to her sister, Ellen A. A. Hulett [d. 1906], Newburgh, New York; bequeathed to her daughter, Margaret Hulett [d. 1947], Newburgh, New York, and Washington, D.C.;[3] sold to John F. Braun, Merion, Pennsylvania.[4] Purchased in 1933 by Clarence Winthrop Bowen [1852-1935], New York, New York, and Woodstock, Connecticut;[5] his daughter, Roxana Wentworth Bowen, Lady Gordon Vereker [1895-1968], Valbonne, France;[6] bequest 1970 to NGA. [1] For his dates see Daniel Langdon Tappan, _Tappan-Toppan Genealogy: Ancestors and Descendants of Abraham Toppan of Newbury, Massachusetts, 1606-1672_, Arlington, Massachusetts, 1915, 25, 40. [2] Her birth date is in _Memoirs of Mrs. Sarah Tappan_, New York, 1834, 131; she is listed as "Julia" in Tappan 1915, 40. [3] The provenance to Margaret Hulett (sometimes spelled Hewlett or Hulette) is recounted in a memorandum from her sister Anna Hulett (NGA curatorial file). A label attached to the reverse records that the painting was owned by both sisters and that on 27 June 1924, H.K. Bush-Brown of 1729 G Street, Washington, lent it to the National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution (now the National Museum of American Art). The Gallery's records indicate that the portrait, which was for sale, was returned to Bush-Brown on 17 September 1924 (copies, NGA curatorial file). Margaret Hulett died in Washington on 4 January 1947; her will and a related document are filed with the probate court, District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia; copy, NGA curatorial file). [4] The Frick Art Reference Library, New York, recorded the new owner's name when the painting was photographed in 1928. The phrase "Philadelphia collector owner 1926" was added in pencil to the entry on this portrait in a copy of 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 (library, National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.). The writer is unidentified. [5] Bowen was a cousin of the Huletts; their aunt Lucy Maria Hulett, who married Henry Chandler Bowen, was his mother; see Tappan 1915, 40-41. He recorded the acquisition of the portrait in his diary for 4 August 1933 (Clarence Winthrop Bowen, diary, 1924-1934, 277, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, courtesy of Thomas Knowles, curator of manuscripts). His niece Constance Holt told the Frick Art Reference Library in October 1933 that he had purchased the portrait. [6] Lady Vereker was uncertain whether the portrait was a gift during her father's lifetime or a bequest in his will (notes made by William Campbell, NGA curatorial file). His will, dated 1 August 1935 (copy, NGA curatorial file), bequeathed to her "all pictures except those herein specified as bequeathed to others." Lady Vereker's birth date is in Tappan 1915, 41; her death date is recorded in the NGA curatorial file.