A FINE PORTRAIT BY STUART OF JOHN ADAMS, 1824

John Adams by Gilbert Stuart 1824 at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

This later portrait of our second President of the United States John Adams (1735-1826) is known to have been painted by Stuart sometime in 1824, as his son wrote that the painting was completed during Adam’s ninetieth year. It is generally acknowledged to be fine depiction by the portrait artist despite Stuart's advancing age. Barratt/Miles write: “Since he first painted Adams in 1800, Stuart’s brushwork had softened, becoming less precise, and showing signs of a tremulous hand.” p 322 (see book info in permanent area on right) "Completion of the portrait apparently took a full year." p 322

Also according to Barratt/Miles taken from the diary of Son J.Q Adams: John Quincy Adams “called...upon Stewart the Painter, and engaged him to go out to Quincy, and there paint a Portrait of my father—More than twenty years have passed since he painted the former portrait, and time has wrought so much of change on his countenance that I wish to possess a likeness of him as he now is. Stewart started some objections, of trivial difficulties—The want of an Easel, of a room properly adapted to the light; but finally promised that he would go, and take with him his best brush...”

In the last post (scroll down), two portraits are shown, attributed to Gilbert Stuart. Stuart was so willing, and capapble, to paint an aged sea captain and his wife in steady, plentiful detail, yet had ‘trivial objections’ to painting the second president of the United States at this point in time? I think it can be easily speculated that the pair of Schermerhorn portraits are wrongly attributed to the great master. {Which would explain the low starting bid.} Did the sellers/buyers consult any experts about the attribution?

A Fighter for Our Liberty

“It was in the courtrooms of Massachusetts and on the printed page, principally in the newspapers of Boston, that Adams had distinguished himself. Years of riding the court circuit and his brilliance before the bar had brought him wide recognition and respect. And of greater consequence in recent years had been his spirited determination and eloquence in the cause of American rights and liberties.” “John Adams” by David McCullough, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001