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Maker(s):unknown
Culture:American
Title:portrait: Major General John Sullivan
Date Made:after 1873
Type:Drawing
Materials:oil, paper, ink, wood, gilding, glass
Place Made:United States
Measurements:framed: 7 3/8 in x 5 15/16 in x 1/2 in; 18.7325 cm x 15.08125 cm x 1.27 cm; image: 6 1/4 in x 4 3/4 in
Accession Number:  HD 62.222A
Credit Line:Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Harlan Angier
Museum Collection:  Historic Deerfield
1962-222AT.jpg

Description:
Portrait of Major General John Sullivan (1740-1795) looking right and wearing the standard blue and buff uniform of American generals, in a wooden frame with a gilt inner lining and ring for hanging. This and the alleged other 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). Sullivan was commisioned 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. In 1876, "J. and E. Sullivan" loaned a portrait of Gen. John Sullivan to the exhibition, "Loan Collection of Revolutionary Relics exhibited at the Old South Church, November, 1876. For the Benefit of the Old South Purchase Fund," which appears in the Catalogue as entry no. 313, listed as a "Portrait of Gen. John Sullivan, by Tenney, after sketch by Trumbull." The image, the only known likeness of Sullivan, was based on a 1790 pencil sketch by John Trumbull (1756-1843) done in Exeter, NH; Trumbull had served as a volunteer aide-de-camp to Sullivan during the Rhode Island campaign in 1778. This sketch was published for the first time in Henry Cabot Lodge's "The Story of the Revolution" (published in 1898), and was then in the possession of his grandson. The 1790 sketch, which depicts Sullivan as a 50 year old man, was copied as an oil portrait by Ulysses Dow Tenney (1826-1908), and Ulysses' portrait was copied by his uncle Adna Tenney (1810-1900) in 1873; these portraits show a younger Sullivan. Born in New Hampshire and a farmer until 1844, Adna Tenney went to Boston where he studied with the portrait painter Francis Alexander (1800-1880) and became an itinerant portrait artist. Ulysses Dow Tenney studied portrait painting with his uncle and Francis Alexander, and worked mainly in Manchester, Hanover and Concord from 1849 on. Benjamin F. Prescott (1833-1895) and Thomas Logan Tullock (1820-1883) began the New Hampshire State House Art Collection with "the Portrait Gallery of the governors and other citizens, distinguished for their civic and military services...." Tullock concentrated on collecting oil portraits from New Hampshire's "old families." Prescott conceived the idea creating copies of historical figures from whatever pictorial sources could be found, and commissioned both the Tenneys in the early 1870s to visit such institutions as the Yale University Art Gallery to copy Jonathan Trumbull's portraits of New Hampshire's Revolutionary War heroes. The New Hampshire State House has 30 of Adna's portraits, including a portrait of Gen John Sullivan is described as" Portrait by A. Tenney, after a portrait by U. D. Tenney; developed from 1790 pencil sketch by Trumbull. Presented to the State by a descendent, 1873." This may have been Dr. John Sullivan of Boston, Massachusetts, the great-grandson of Gen. John Sullivan. There is also a black and white engraving of Sullivan facing left and wearing a similar uniform over "Sullivan" in roman letters, over "Jn Sullivan" in script, which has been folded to fit over the wooden backing of the frame. In 1876, Richard Morrell Staigg (1817-1881) painted a similar portrait said to be copied after a miniature on glass by John Trumbull, then owned by Thomas Coffin Amory of Boston, the grand-nephew of John Sullivan, but later destroyed. However, in an 1880 letter to the Seneca County Centennial Committee, Avory wrote that Staigg's portrait of Sullivan was Staigg's composite image of how Sullivan would have appeared about half-way between the 1776 English engraving by Thomas Hart (HD 62.222C) and Trumbull's 1790 sketch.

Tags:
portraits

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+62.222A

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