Collections Database

Description:
Framed mezzotint hand-colored in brown, green, white, red, blue and yellow, titled "MAJOR GENERAL JOHN SULLIVAN / A distinguish'd OFFICER in the CONTINENTAL ARMY. / Published as the Act directs 22 Augt 1776 by Thos. Hart." and "92" in the lower right corner. This and the other alleged Sullivan-related items acquired in 1962, were said to be, "Unreservedly guaranteed to have been purchased directly from the home of Col. James and Mrs. Sullivan of Ashfield, Massachusetts" (nothing in the file about Col. James Sullivan). Public curiosity for prints of Revolutionary heroes was not limited to America but spread to the English and European print shops, where an inquisitive audience wanted to see the key figures of the war. London print publishers using the names of C. Shepard, Thomas Hart, and John Morris issued a series of mezzotints of portraits of officers in the Continental Army between 1775-1778. According to Fowble: "Each publisher seems to have made at least a passing effort to get an authentic portrait model, but it is doubtful that the publishers themselves had a personal acquaintance with each subject from which to judge the resemblance. There is a striking sameness in these imaginary portraits. The subjects have full, prominent eyes, straight noses, rounded chins, and well-fleshed throats." John Sullivan (1740-1795) was commissioned a general in the Continental Army under George Washington in 1775; was a member of the Continental Congress representing New Hampshire; and was later President (Governor) and U.S. District Judge of New Hampshire. Sullivan was also one of the founders of the Society of Cincinnati and the first President of the Order in New Hampshire. Sullivan appears in full military uniform, hat on head, and holding a long-handled pike in his right hand; he is wearing a gorget which has a different shape than the gorget, HD 62.222D, alleged to have been owned by Sullivan. At the time of the Revolution, the crescent-shaped gorget was regulation in the British army, but was never officially adopted by the Continental Army; as a result, there is no uniformity in the design of American gorgets. They were worn by some field officers in the French and Indian Wars and by a few early in the Revolution; George Washington is shown wearing a gilt brass gorget engraved with the Colonial Arms of Virginia in a 1772 painting by Charles Wilson Peale.

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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+62.222C

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