CHARLES WILLSON PEALE 1741-1827
Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Russell, c. 1784
Oil on canvas, 30 1/4 X 25 1/4" (76.84 x 64.14 cm.)
Unsigned
Museum purchases, 969-0-111 and 969-0-112
 

Thomas Russell (1741-1786) ordered two pairs of portraits of himself and his wife, nee Ann Thomas (b. 1751), during a trip to Philadelphia from Cecil County, Maryland around 1784. At that time, Peale, his patron's exact contemporary, dominated the local portrait market. Because the Russells enjoyed greater financial and material prosperity in the early 1780s than ever before, they probably intended these commissions to mark their recently- achieved status. The sitters kept the pair painted from life (c. 1784, The Crane Collection, Boston). With both a daughter Frances (b. 1776) and a son Thomas (b. 1779), they could expect their portraits to become heirlooms situating them at the origin of a line of inheritance. Thomas Russell sent the second pair, the Butler institute's paintings, as gifts to his older brother William in their native Birmingham, England.
These pairs of portraits offer significant evidence about Peale's habits of thought as a painter, for the difference between the gaunt physiognomy of Mr. Russell's life portrait and the oval face of the Butler Institute's replica attests to a penchant for conforming sitters' faces to an ideal geometry. The sentient, sensible faces in all four canvases are typical as well as exemplary of the painter's achievement in portraiture. To the extent that desires to shape reputations often prompt portrait commissions, these paintings include many elements suggestive of how the Russells wanted to be known among their contemporaries. The figures' orientation towards one another and receipt of illumination from the same direction identifies each sitter as one half of a couple joined in wedlock. Even though their wealth was relatively new, the conservative chair forms and the classicizing vase in Mrs. Russell's portrait suggest the sitters' membership in long- established lineS. Depicting neither chair with arms, Peale portrayed Mr. Russell as if resting his left forearm on the painting's edge, a device that institutes a spatial barrier between the viewer and the otherwise immediately-presented figure. Of Russell's left arm, Peale painted only the bent elbow and waistcoat-inserted hand that, at the time, signified gentlemanly refinement and ease.
When William Russell received his presents around 1784, he beheld effigies of a kinsman whom he had not seen since 1771 and, because Thomas married Ann in 1774, of a sister-in-law whom he had never seen. Only this version of Thomas's portrait bears the inscription "Friend & Brother/W:m Russell" on the unfolded paper at lower left. The painting thus depicts a souvenir of the fraternal bond that the patron intended to affirm with his gift. Because the basis for the wealth enjoyed by Thomas had been laid by his father, the pair of portraits would have probably brought to William's mind memories of the brothers' deceased parents.
In the early 1720s, Thomas Russell, Sr. traveled briefly to the middle colonies to establish iron furnaces for the British-owned Principio Company, one of the earliest and most important American ironworks of the eighteenth century. The brothers inherited their father's financial, interests upon his death, with Thomas assuming an active role in the firm. Directing the company's American operations, Thomas first lived in the colonies between 1764 and 1769. Returning in 1771, he gradually alienated himself from the British management, probably due to a growing commitment to colonial independence. In 1778 he signed an oath of allegiance to the state of Maryland. By supplying iron for the military needs of the newly-declared states he parlayed his father's holdings into a fortune. In 1781, the Maryland General Assembly confiscated the Principio Company. The subsequent order to sell its considerable holdings distinguished Russell for his loyalty, reserving for his indemnification a portion of the profits to be received from the sale of company lands. Russell received this boon in the form of company buildings, slaves, equipment, and over 6,000 acres, all of which were valued at about E5,550. With the portraits that he gave as gifts, then, Thomas Russell acknowledged in the familial sphere Trans-Atlantic ties that had been recently and permanently severed in the realms of both business and politics.

DAVID STEINBERG