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Thomas Sully

Born in England to actor parents, Thomas Sully began his artistic career painting miniatures in Charleston, South Carolina. He later received advice from such established artists as Henry Benbridge, John Trumbull and Gilbert Stuart before returning to England for a year of study with Sir Thomas Lawrence and others. Sully settled in Philadelphia in 1810, where he soon established himself as America's leading portraitist, a reputation he maintained for more than sixty years.

Sully was to American art what Lawrence was in England, the creator of a romantic style of portraiture --- refined, reflective and immensely popular. Although he painted many of the country's most prominent politicians, clergymen and military heroes, his fame rests mainly on his elegant and idealized portraits of women. As H. T. Tuckerman perceptively observed of Sully's subjects, they "have an air of breeding, a high tone, and a genteel carriage . . . One always feels at least in good society among his portraits" (Tuckerman, p. 159).

Cornelius Barber was born at St. Mary's County, Maryland, the eldest son of a prominent Maryland family, and lived from 1803 to 1853 in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Georgetown, D.C. In 1834, then a wealthy landowner, he married Margaret Adlum, the daughter of Major John Adlum of Georgetown, D.C., a successful winemaker and land speculator. Upon Adlum's death in 1836, Margaret inherited extensive family property. The Barbers promptly purchased part of a tract of land known as "Pretty Prospect" and settled down to country life. In the summer of 1849, a swift but unknown disease claimed the lives of five of their six children (Divided Town, p. 65). As a diversion for their grief, they built a new house at the high point of their estate, on what is now Observatory Hill. The Italianate structure, called "North View," was designed by the famous architect, Calvert Vaux, and had a vista of the Potomac River and views of the surrounding scenery. The villa was completed in 1852 (Reiff, p. 129). On September 2, 1853, following what must have been a very short illness, and only ten days after making out his will, Cornelius Barber died at the age of fifty-one. In addition to "Pretty Prospect," he left estates in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and a $2000 legacy to St. John's Episcopal Church, where he served as a vestryman (Divided Town, p. 66).

This bust-length likeness was painted from a daguerreotype to hang as a pendant portrait of Mrs. Barber by Sully. It was commissioned by Margaret Barber shortly after her husband's death (Biddle and Fielding, p. 93). Barber is shown at about the age of forty-five, a handsome man, proud, self-confident and reserved. At a time when Sully was painting more and more "floating heads," it is a fully finished composition, enhanced by the artist's fluid brushwork and delicate use of color. Sully valued the picture at $100 and completed it on December 10 (ibid.). The portrait remained in the possession of Barber's descendants until 1980, when it was sold at auction in Charlottesville (Charleston Renaissance Gallery, Sully file).

Nancy Rivard Shaw

Sources:

Biddle, Edward, and Fielding, Mantle. The Life and Works of Thomas Sully (1783-1872). Philadelphia: 1921.

Divided Town. Charleston Rennaisance Gallery, Sully file.

Reiff, Daniel D. Washington Architecture 1791-1861: Problems in Development. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 1971.

Tuckerman, Henry T. Book of the Artists. New York: 1867.

Biography courtesy of The Charleston Renaissance Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/charleston

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