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In reality, Sparks’s nature was more studious than adventurous. The historian had just completed compiling and editing a twelve-volume series entitled The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution. The series was published in1830, just one year before this painting was completed, and it may have been the publication of Sparks’s opus that inspired his friend and Harvard classmate William H. Eliot to commission this portrait from Sully. [1] Although Sparks would go on to serve as the seventeenth president of Harvard College, he is best remembered for his historical scholarship.
Executed during one of Sully’s many trips to Boston in search of commissions, the portrait of Jared Sparks is a half-length portrait in a vertical format. Sully presents Sparks seated, marking a page in his book. He gazes off to the left in a diagonal direction, a detail that reinforces the sitter’s pensive mood. His dark curly hair and heavy sideburns are tousled, almost windblown, and his florid complexion hints at barely suppressed excitement. His dark, hooded eyes are easily recognized in other portraits by Sully; the artist often bestowed this physical trait on his subjects. Sparks is elegantly if soberly dressed, as befits a scholar, in a heavy black jacket with covered buttons, brown scarf, white cravat, and starched white collar. The background is loosely painted in muted tones of brown so that the viewer’s attention is fully focused on the subject’s face and hand. The paint application is fluid but restrained, producing a flat matte surface.
Sully chose the cover of the book Sparks holds as the site for his own initials and the date of the painting. In doing so, he consciously linked Sparks’s scholarly work with his own artistic production. Created three years after the death of Gilbert Stuart, this romantic image both transformed a serious scholar into a dashing hero and cemented Sully’s reputation as the premier portrait painter of his day.
Notes:
[1] Charles C. Eldredge, Barbara Babcock Millhouse, and Robert G. Workman, American Originals: Selections from Reynolda House, Museum of American Art (New York: Abbeville Press, 1990): 36.
ProvenanceFrom 1831
William H. Eliot (died early manhood), Boston, commissioned work from the artist in 1831 [1]
William Eliot Sparks (1847-1886), given as an heirloom; Mary Silsbee Sparks (born 1876) and Ethel Sparks (born 1882), Taunton, MA, received from their father William Eliot Sparks. [2]
Hirschl & Alder Galleries, Inc., New York, NY [3]
From 1972 to 1984
Barbara B. Millhouse, New York, NY and Winston-Salem, NC, purchased from Hirschl & Alder Galleries, Inc., New York on August 10, 1972. [4]
From 1984
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Barbara B. Millhouse on December 28, 1984. [5]
Notes:
[1] From Herbert B. Adams, The life and writings of Jared Sparks, in two vols., Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1893, excerpts in object file. Eliot was a friend of the subject.
[2] Adams, excerpts. William Eliot Sparks (1847-1886) was the son of the subject. Joan Durana Provenance Research, c. 1984. Daughters of William Eliot Sparks. Some records in the object file also mention possession belonging to Mrs. W. J. (Harriet Mason) Clemson (born 1851)--who was the mother of Mary and Ethel and former wife of William Eliot Sparks.
[3] Bill of Sale, object file.
[4] See note 4.
[5] Deed of Gift, object file.
Exhibition History1990 -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)
2006
Self/Image: Portraiture from Copley to Close
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (8/30/2006 - 12/31/2006)
2008 - 2009
Early American Portraits
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (5/13/2008 - 3/16/2009)
2010
Looking At/Looking In: Bodies and Faces in Contemporary Art
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (5/11/2010 - 8/8/2010)
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 ReferencesFielding, Mantle and Edward Biddle. The Life and Works of Thomas Sully. 1921: 278, no. 1637.
Hart, Charles Henry. A Register of Portraits by Thomas Sully. 1909: 153, no. 1566.
Millhouse, Barbara B. and Robert Workman. American Originals New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1990: 36-9.
Pfister, Jude. Jared Sparks and the Washington Papers. Eastern National, 2006.
Schiller, Joyce K. Reading Portraits Through Buttons And Bows. Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, 2001: 16-7.
Zug, James. American Traveler: The Life and Adventures of John Ledyard, the Man Who Dreamed of Walking the World. Flat Hammock Press, 2005.
Duffy, John J. and H. Nicholas Muller III. Inventing Ethan Allen. University Press of New England, 2014: 81.
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: 392-393.
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. 212, 213
DepartmentAmerican Art
Jared Sparks
Artist
Thomas Sully
(1783 - 1872)
Date1831
Mediumoil on canvas mounted on panel
DimensionsImage (visible): 35 9/16 x 27 1/2 in. (90.3 x 69.9 cm)
Frame: 45 x 37 in. (114.3 x 94 cm)
SignedT S. 1831.
Credit LineGift of Barbara B. Millhouse
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object number1984.2.11
DescriptionIn his portrait of the scholar and writer Jared Sparks (1789–1866), Thomas Sully presents his subject as a dreamy and romantic hero. Sparks’s present task—reading the book he holds in his right hand—has been momentarily interrupted by a thought that has plunged him into reverie, and he absentmindedly holds his place in the book with his index finger. A markedly different character from John Singleton Copley’s practical merchants and patriots or Gilbert Stuart’s dignified republicans, Sully’s Sparks is a dashing figure from the era of Byron, Keats, Shelley, Sir Walter Scott, and James Fenimore Cooper.In reality, Sparks’s nature was more studious than adventurous. The historian had just completed compiling and editing a twelve-volume series entitled The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution. The series was published in1830, just one year before this painting was completed, and it may have been the publication of Sparks’s opus that inspired his friend and Harvard classmate William H. Eliot to commission this portrait from Sully. [1] Although Sparks would go on to serve as the seventeenth president of Harvard College, he is best remembered for his historical scholarship.
Executed during one of Sully’s many trips to Boston in search of commissions, the portrait of Jared Sparks is a half-length portrait in a vertical format. Sully presents Sparks seated, marking a page in his book. He gazes off to the left in a diagonal direction, a detail that reinforces the sitter’s pensive mood. His dark curly hair and heavy sideburns are tousled, almost windblown, and his florid complexion hints at barely suppressed excitement. His dark, hooded eyes are easily recognized in other portraits by Sully; the artist often bestowed this physical trait on his subjects. Sparks is elegantly if soberly dressed, as befits a scholar, in a heavy black jacket with covered buttons, brown scarf, white cravat, and starched white collar. The background is loosely painted in muted tones of brown so that the viewer’s attention is fully focused on the subject’s face and hand. The paint application is fluid but restrained, producing a flat matte surface.
Sully chose the cover of the book Sparks holds as the site for his own initials and the date of the painting. In doing so, he consciously linked Sparks’s scholarly work with his own artistic production. Created three years after the death of Gilbert Stuart, this romantic image both transformed a serious scholar into a dashing hero and cemented Sully’s reputation as the premier portrait painter of his day.
Notes:
[1] Charles C. Eldredge, Barbara Babcock Millhouse, and Robert G. Workman, American Originals: Selections from Reynolda House, Museum of American Art (New York: Abbeville Press, 1990): 36.
ProvenanceFrom 1831
William H. Eliot (died early manhood), Boston, commissioned work from the artist in 1831 [1]
William Eliot Sparks (1847-1886), given as an heirloom; Mary Silsbee Sparks (born 1876) and Ethel Sparks (born 1882), Taunton, MA, received from their father William Eliot Sparks. [2]
Hirschl & Alder Galleries, Inc., New York, NY [3]
From 1972 to 1984
Barbara B. Millhouse, New York, NY and Winston-Salem, NC, purchased from Hirschl & Alder Galleries, Inc., New York on August 10, 1972. [4]
From 1984
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Barbara B. Millhouse on December 28, 1984. [5]
Notes:
[1] From Herbert B. Adams, The life and writings of Jared Sparks, in two vols., Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1893, excerpts in object file. Eliot was a friend of the subject.
[2] Adams, excerpts. William Eliot Sparks (1847-1886) was the son of the subject. Joan Durana Provenance Research, c. 1984. Daughters of William Eliot Sparks. Some records in the object file also mention possession belonging to Mrs. W. J. (Harriet Mason) Clemson (born 1851)--who was the mother of Mary and Ethel and former wife of William Eliot Sparks.
[3] Bill of Sale, object file.
[4] See note 4.
[5] Deed of Gift, object file.
Exhibition History1990 -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)
2006
Self/Image: Portraiture from Copley to Close
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (8/30/2006 - 12/31/2006)
2008 - 2009
Early American Portraits
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (5/13/2008 - 3/16/2009)
2010
Looking At/Looking In: Bodies and Faces in Contemporary Art
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (5/11/2010 - 8/8/2010)
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 ReferencesFielding, Mantle and Edward Biddle. The Life and Works of Thomas Sully. 1921: 278, no. 1637.
Hart, Charles Henry. A Register of Portraits by Thomas Sully. 1909: 153, no. 1566.
Millhouse, Barbara B. and Robert Workman. American Originals New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1990: 36-9.
Pfister, Jude. Jared Sparks and the Washington Papers. Eastern National, 2006.
Schiller, Joyce K. Reading Portraits Through Buttons And Bows. Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, 2001: 16-7.
Zug, James. American Traveler: The Life and Adventures of John Ledyard, the Man Who Dreamed of Walking the World. Flat Hammock Press, 2005.
Duffy, John J. and H. Nicholas Muller III. Inventing Ethan Allen. University Press of New England, 2014: 81.
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: 392-393.
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. 212, 213
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