Sketch of Gibby (Gilbert Stuart) ...&, who is Lawrence Park

The sketch is drawn by Benjamin West, first American artist to win a wide reputation in Europe, and founder of the Royal Academy of Arts, London 1768. West did this sketch while sitting for Stuart for his own portrait. Stuart worked in West's studio in London for about 5 years, before setting off on his own (shortly after exhibiting The Skater [entry Feb 1]).

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Yesterday I received a precious package; a box containing the four large volumes by Lawrence Park documenting and depicting a large number of GS paintings. Indeedy quite the splurge. "Through his death the small group of acknowledged authorities on early American painting lost a member who, in the opinion of many, had the most thorough and critical knowledge of Colonial and early Republican portraiture. Equipped with all the faculties of mind and intellect necessary for research work in the filed of art, with an unusual capacity for detail and with an intuition that hardly every failed him, Lawrence Park accumulated a knowledge which comes to its finest manifestation in his present catalogue raisonné." (Park was not able to find all of Stuart's work, nor are all the identities of the sitters known.) George Mason was the first to list GS works, 1894.

Lawrence Park 1873-1924

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The quote above is from Volume I, Gilbert Stuart; An Illustrated Descriptive List of his Works Compiled by Lawrence Park, New York, William Edwin Rudge, 1926

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