THE WORLD OF SAMUEL MEEKER, MERCHANT OF PHILADELPHIA, AND GILBERT STUART, AMERICAN PORTRAIT ARTIST

Friday, March 6, 2009

Confusion continues on the attribution


Even armed with my digital print out of Edward S. by Gilbert Stuart (see 2/27/09 "I knew...then..."), my confusion continued to reign on the identity of the artist who painted Samuel Meeker. After the editor of the Peale papers stated my portrait was not by CW Peale (see 3/4/09 "Misattribution"), I was still not convinced that the portrait was by Stuart, for there was the Problem of the Timeline. At left one can see on my 'Stow worksheet' the doodle "gone from Am[erica] went to England"-that refers to Stuart. & "timing is off!"
So I next turned to John Trumbull as the possible painter. In fact, the portrait of George Washington...was not Totally Dissimilar.....??


It did not occur to me that I was CHASING the WRONG Samuel Meeker.


John Trumbull, George Washington; 1780; courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art



John Trumbull The Signing of the Declaration of Independence;1817; at US Capitol Building

7 comments:

Tess Kincaid said...

I'm so intrigued! So there are two Samuel Meekers lurking around back there?

Tess Kincaid said...

I did a little post on your blog. Hope that's okay! :^)

Yoli said...

Very interesting indeed. Handsome ancestor and intriguing blog.

Kat Mortensen said...

I came at Willow's direction. She knows a good thing when she sees it.

Fascinating!

Kat

StimmeDesHerzens said...

hi willow, oh, my goodness there has been a bit of interest generated! of course you can post on my blog! and I was meaning to answer your question about the two Samuel Meekers but have been busy with daughter and JSA and and and;

There are a ton of Samuel Meekers! father, father's cousin....all came into the running, but stay tuned!

Anonymous said...

I imagine you've seen the mini series John Adams that was on HBO and now available on DVD where John Trumball's depiction of the Declaration of Independence supposedly was derided by John Adams for being inaccurate. Peggy Duvall Utopia, Tx. via Willow's blog

StimmeDesHerzens said...

The John Adams mini series is, no other word for it, OUTSTANDING. I loved it, want more of it, wanted more of it...

as for Trumbull's work re: Declaration of Independence; apparently it was not based on what actually happened. but ask all of us lesser beings, if we would prefer to do without this painting..... !!

 
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