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Gilbert Stuart, Mrs. Harrison Otis (Sally Foster), 1809
Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis (Sally Foster)
Gilbert Stuart, Mrs. Harrison Otis (Sally Foster), 1809
Gilbert Stuart, Mrs. Harrison Otis (Sally Foster), 1809
DepartmentAmerican Art

Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis (Sally Foster)

Artist (1755 - 1828)
Date1809
Mediumoil on mahogany panel
DimensionsFrame: 43 x 36 3/4 in. (109.2 x 93.3 cm) Support: 33 1/2 x 26 1/2 in. (85.1 x 67.3 cm) Image: 32 x 26 in. (81.3 x 66 cm)
Signed<none>
Credit LineOriginal Purchase Fund from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, ARCA, and Anne Cannon Forsyth
CopyrightPublic domain
Object number1967.2.3
DescriptionSally Foster (1770-1836), daughter of Grace Spear and William Foster, a Boston merchant, married Harrison Gray Otis (1765-1848) in 1790. Her husband, a Harvard educated lawyer, was highly successful in both public and private life, attaining great wealth before he was thirty through business dealings such as the private development of Beacon Hill in Boston. As a politician, he served in various capacities in state politics from 1802 through 1817, becoming the acknowledged leader of the New England Federalists. Otis represented Massachusetts as a Congressman during the John Adams administration and later in the Senate under President James Monroe. From 1829 until 1831, he served as the third mayor of Boston.

At the time of her portrait by Stuart, Sally Otis was thirty-eight years old and the mother of ten children, with her last child born the following year. It is very likely that former President John Adams would have admired Stuart’s portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Otis in 1816 when he was a guest at their mansion at 45 Beacon Street in Boston. The hospitable couple regularly entertained in great style, and an oft-recalled feature of their Beacon Hill residence was the two-gallon blue and white Lowestoft punch bowl placed on the stairway landing between the entrance hall and the second floor drawing room, filled every afternoon at four o’clock. [1] On the occasion of his visit, John Adams wrote to his son, John Quincy Adams of the event, adding “I never before knew Mrs. Otis. She has good Understanding. I have seldom if ever passed a more sociable day.” [2] His son wrote back that he was “highly gratified by your and my Mother’s Account of your social party at Judge Otis’s …. Mrs. Otis is and always has been a charming woman; and I am very glad you have seen them both in the place where of all others they appear to the greatest advantage—their own home.”[3]

In Stuart’s portrait, Sally Otis is fashionably dressed in the neo-Grecian style. The neo-Grec fashion from France had initially been considered scandalous by members of Washington society, especially in its more extreme forms, as worn by Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (bride of Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon’s youngest brother) at a January 1804 reception in her honor. A guest described her dress: “ [it] was the thinnest sarcenet and white crepe without the least stiffening in it (…) there was scarcely any waist to it and no sleeves; her back, her bosom, part of her waist and her arms were uncover’d and the rest of her form visible. She was engaged the next evening at Madm P’s, Mrs. R. Smith and several other ladies sent her word, if she wished to meet them there, she must promise to have more clothes on.” [4] But by 1809, the style as worn by Sally Otis in her portrait would have been regarded as highly fashionable rather than outré.

Although Stuart’s late work done in Boston (1805-1828) is sometimes variable in quality, Mrs. Otis’ portrait demonstrates Stuart’s technical brilliance in his fluid brushwork and color glazes. The half-length portrait shows the sitter in slightly three quarter profile. Sally Otis’ dress has an extremely low-cut bodice with very short, slightly gathered sleeves and is covered by a sheer fabric attached to the underlying white fabric by simple lace edging. Her hair is pulled up in a loose chignon accented with a few jewels, arranged with a center part and dangling curls framing her forehead and over her ears. She wears no necklace, but her high waist is cinched by a slim white girdle fastened with a jeweled gold pin, and she wears a chased gold amulet on her left arm. The reddish background of her paisley shawl, as well as the red accent of the jewels in her hair, complement the bluish-green damask upholstery of the Empire chair in which she sits. Mrs. Otis’ pose is one of elegance and composure, with hands clasped in her lap, shawl elegantly arranged around her shoulders, and clear brown eyes meeting the viewer’s gaze.

A contemporary account by the sitter’s friend Mrs. Charles Davis [5] is included in a letter to her mother, written after Mrs. Davis had paid a visit to Stuart’s studio:

“Mrs. Otis’ picture is as perfect as it can be. She is taken with her younger son in her arms and a most beautiful one it is. I asked Mr. Stuart how it was possible to get a correct likeness of children, who are always in motion, ‘I shoot flying’ was the answer.” [6]

Apparently, the letter describes an earlier state of the painting, with a composition similar to that of Mrs. George Calvert and her Daughter Caroline (1804, Maryland Historical Society) or Elizabeth Corbin Griffin Gatliff and her Daughter Elizabeth (ca. 1798, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Mrs. Otis’s “younger son” Alleyne (1807-1873), then about two years old, was included in the earlier state of the painting. [7] Stuart invariably began a portrait by quickly sketching in the head with quick strokes of his brush, leaving compositional details such as clothing and props to be completed later. Looking carefully today, viewers are able to discern in the background left of center, the blocking out of the boy’s face, with eyes, nose and mouth and bangs upon his forehead, but no neck or body. There is no recorded explanation for Alleyne’s portrait being overpainted. Stuart’s ultimate modification of the mother-and-son composition to an individual portrait was readily accomplished and is only noticeable in the rearranged folds of the shawl over her right forearm and the pentimento of the child’s head.

The prepared panel is of West Indian mahogany that had been scored diagonally using a toothed plane-iron, suggesting the texture of canvas. Such panels were provided to Stuart by Ruggles, a Boston cabinet maker with a shop on Winter Street. [8] The art historian Marcia Goldberg suggests that Stuart was using prepared panels because imported canvas from England was scarce, due to several nonimportation acts between 1807 and through the War of 1812. [9]

John Doggett (1780-1857) was a Boston carver, gilder, cabinet, looking glass and frame maker and picture dealer located in Roxbury. An entry dated June 30, 1810 in his daybook indicates that Harrison Gray Otis purchased three picture frames for $36.16. Since Stuart painted portraits of Sally’s husband and her father-in-law in 1809, it seems plausible that this could be one of the Doggett frames. [10]

When Sally died unexpectedly in 1836, Harrison Gray Otis wrote: “It is hard parting after 46 years of love & harmony from a person too who liv’d for me and for others & less for herself than any person I have ever known.” [11]

Mrs. Otis’s portrait was displayed at the Boston Atheneum in the 1828 “Stuart Benefit Exhibition--Portraits Painted by the late Gilbert Stuart,” and in a general exhibition there in 1855. It was included in the 1880 “Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart” held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Having descended through members of the family, Mrs. Otis’s portrait was acquired by Reynolda House from Vose Galleries in Boston in 1967 as one of the original purchases for the American art collection.

Notes:
[1] The three successive Boston residences designed for the Otises by noted architect Charles Bulfinch survive today. The first, at 141 Cambridge St., is now a house museum run by Historic New England. Harrison Gray Otis' portrait by Stuart is on display there, with a facsimile of Reynolda's painting of his wife. The Otis's second house is now a private residence. The third and largest house, occupied by the family from 1806 to 1848, is at 45 Beacon St. and is now the headquarters of the American Meteorological Society.
[2] Samuel Eliot Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 1765-1848: The Urbane Federalist (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), p. 192.
[3] Morison, p. 192-193.
[4] Margaret Bayard Smith. Letter to Jane Bayard Kirkpatrick, January 23, 1804, in Gaillard Hunt, ed., The First Forty Years of Washington Society (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906), pp. 46-47.
[5] The portrait of Mrs. Davis from this time is in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art.
[6] Lawrence G. S. Park, Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of his Works,, 4 vos. (New York, 1826), p. 565.
[7] Alleyne Otis was named for his older brother, the Otis’s fifth child who was born in 1796 but drowned in 1806 when he was ten years old. “The Otises had already lost two children in their infancy; but in those days that was to be expected. Alleyne, however, was a lusty young boy, the image of his father. Harrison Gray Otis wrote to his uncle, Harrison Gray, “The loss is never to be forgotten. As our affection for him was unbounded, so is our grief, and all the troubles of my life have been small in comparison with this.” Morison, p. 297.
[8] Charles Merrill Mount, Gilbert Stuart: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.), p 284.
[9] Marcia Goldberg, “Textured Panels in American 19th Century Painting, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 32 (1993), pp. 33-42.
[10] In a letter from the RHMAA object file dated 2/22/2000 from Laura K. Mills, Worcester Art Museum to Dr. Joyce K. Schiller, RHMAA, Mills references the Doggett daybook (on loan to the Willard House and Museum in Grafton, MA) and describes her discovery of the line item notation of the Otis purchase.
[11] Morrison, p. 497.
ProvenanceGeorge William Lyman (1787-1880), Boston MA. [1]

George Theodore Lyman, Bellport, Long Island NY. [2]

Elizabeth Gray Lyman (Mrs. Albert) Meredith (born 1858), Milton MA and Alice Lyman (Mrs. William Platt) Pepper (born 1853), Philadelphia PA. [3]

Emily Pepper (Mrs. Arthur H.) Hacker (born 1880), New York. [4]

From at least 1965 to 1967
Arthur H. Hacker Jr. (born c.1904) and William P. Hacker (born c.1905), Philadelphia PA. [5]

1967
Vose Galleries, Boston MA. [6]

From 1967
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC, purchased from Vose Galleries, Boston MA, July 5, 1967. [7]

Notes:
[1] Vose Galleries notes, Object file. Son-in-law of sitter.
[2] Vose Galleries notes, Object file. Son of George William Lyman.
[3] Vose Galleries notes, Object file. Daughters of George Theodore Lyman, jointly held.
[4] Joan Durana Provenance Research, 1983. Daughter of Alice Lyman Pepper.
[5] Joan Durana Provenance Research, 1983. Sons of Emily Pepper Hacker, held jointly.
[6] Bill of Sale, Object file.
[7] See note 6.
Exhibition History1828
Portraits Painted by the Late Gilbert Stuart
Boston Atheneum, Boston MA (1828)
Cat. No. 12

1855
General Exhibition
Boston Atheneum, Boston MA (1855)
Cat. No. 118
Lent by George W. Lyman

1880
Exhibition Of Portraits Painted By Gilbert Stuart
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston MA (1880)
Cat. No. 213

1908-1965
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston MA (1908-1965)

1965-1966
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia PA (1965-1966)
Lent by William P. and Arthur H. Hacker Jr

1975
Paul Revere's Boston: 1735-1818
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston MA (6/1975-10/1975)
Cat. No. 29

1975-1976
The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities
Harrison Gray Otis House, Boston MA (10/1975-1/1976)

1990-1992
American Originals, Selections From Reynolda House Museum Of American Art
The American Federation of Arts
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami FL (9/22/1990-11/18/1990)
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs CA (12/16/1990-2/10/1991)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (3/6/1991-5/11/1991)
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis TN (6/2/1991-7/28/1991)
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth TX (8/17/1991-10/20/1991)
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago IL (11/17/1991-1/12/1992)
The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK (3/1/1992-4/26/1992)

1999-2000
Boston in the Age of Neo-Classicism, 1810-1840
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York NY (11/27/1999-2/5/2000)

2005
Vanguard Collecting: American Art at Reynolda House
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC (4/1/2005-8/21/2005)

2006
Self/Image: Portraiture from Copley to Close
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC (8/30/2006-12/31/2006)

2017
Samuel F.B. Morse's Gallery of the Louvre and the Art of Invention
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (02/17/2017 - 06/04/2017)
Published ReferencesHart, C.H. "Gilbert Stuart's Portraits of Women--Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis (Sally Foster)" The Century Lix (1899): 24, engraving illus. 25.

Park, L. Gilbert Stuart (1926): II, 564-5.

Historical Records Survey, Massachusetts American Portraits Found in Massachusetts (1939): II, 295.

Mount, C.M. Gilbert Stuart--A Biography (1964): 372.

Morison, S.E. Harrison Gray Otis--1765-1848: The Urbane Federalist (1969): illus. 183.

Lassiter, Barbara B. Reynolda House American Paintings. Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House, Inc., 1971: 14, illus. 15.

Millhouse, Barbara B. and Robert Workman. American Originals. New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1990: 30-3.

Schiller, Joyce K. Reading Portraits Through Buttons And Bows. Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, 2001: 14-5.

Mason, G. C. Life And Works Of Gilbert Stuart. (1879): 235.

Stebbins Jr., Theodore E. and Melissa Renn. American Painting at Harvard: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born Before 1826. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014: 455-456.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg. 72, 110, 111
Status
On view
Thomas Sully, Jared Sparks, 1831
Thomas Sully
1831
Edward Savage, The Washington Family, 1798
Edward Savage
1798
Mrs. Augustus Hemenway
John Singer Sargent
1890
Thomas Eakins, A. W. Lee, circa 1905
Thomas Eakins
circa 1905
John Kensett, Landscape, Mid-nineteenth century
John F Kensett
Mid-nineteenth century
Arnold Newman, Stuart Davis, 1941
Arnold Newman
1941
Charles Willson Peale, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Robinson, 1795
Charles Willson Peale
1795
Jeremiah Theus, Mrs. Thomas Lynch, 1755
Jeremiah Thëus
1755
Boris Gordon, Portrait of Mrs. R.J. Reynolds and Mary Reynolds, 1920
Boris Bernhard Gordon
1920