STUART’S PORTRAITS OF WOMEN
Stuart is quoted as saying “Houdon’s bust is the best, and after that, my portrait.” We can well be content to accept these as the two ideal renderings. It has been claimed that he was not very successful in portraying female beauty. This is a contention that is hard to controvert. He did not prettify his sitters in the way Lawrence did; but he surely made them humanly lovely. Rebecca Smith, Anne Bingham, Frances Cadwalader, Elizabeth Bordley, and Sallie McKean, all reputedly handsome in the written testimony of that period, have certainly not suffered in that repute by Stuart’s painting of them. And Betsy Patterson, she of the wilful temperament and romantic career, who married the brother of an emperor, lives for all time as a beauty because of the ability of Stuart. Of this handsome woman a contemporary writes, “Mme. Jerome Bonaparte is a model of fashion, and many of our belles strive to imitate her; but without equal éclat, as Madame has certainly the most beautiful back and shoulders that ever were seen,” and again, “To her mental gifts were added the beauty of a Greek, yet glowing, type, which not even the pencil of Stuart adequately portrayed in the exquisite portrait that he wished might be buried with him: not yet on his other canvas which, with its dainty head in triple pose of loveliness, still smiles in unfading witchery.” Whether or no he painted her as lovely as life, he produced a canvas that has great individuality and charm.
ELIZABETH BEALE BORDLEY
MRS. WM. JACKSON
FRANCES CADWALADER
Women’s portraits by Stuart.
THE GIBBS-CHANNING PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON
By Stuart, in Metropolitan Museum, N. Y.