THOMAS SULLY 1783-1872
Mother and Child, 1827
Oil on canvas, 261/2 X 431/2" (6 7.31 x 110.49 cm.)
Unsigned
Gift of Dr. John J. McDonough, 970-0-121

Not long after his return from eight months of study in London in 1810, Thomas Sully came to be recognized as the most celebrated portrait painter in Philadelphia, a reputation he maintained for over half a century; indeed, he was arguably the most accomplished portraitist of the Romantic era in the United States. Sully was born in Horricastle, England, and was brought as a boy to Charleston, South Carolina, by his actor-parents. His initial instruction in painting was provided by his Charleston schoolmate, Charles Fraser, his brother-in-law, Jean Belzons, and his older brother, Lawrence Sully, all able miniature painters. In 1799, Thomas followed his brother to Richmond, Virginia, and later both artists worked in Norfolk. In 1806, he moved to New York City, and in 1807 traveled to Boston for three weeks of instruction from Gilbert Stuart, who undoubtedly advised the younger painter to go to London. At the end of that year, Sully settled in Philadelphia, which remained his home for the rest of his career.
Sully was not only a masterful portrait painter, but a most prolific one. He first established his reputation with a number of theatrical portraits, notably those of William Burke Wood in the Role of Charles de Moor (1811, Corcoran Gallery of Art) and George Frederick Cooke in the Role of Richard III (1811, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia). Among his other most celebrated likenesses were those of the Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, Bishop William White (1814, Washington Cathedral, Washington, D.C.) and The Marquis de Lafayette (1825-26, Independence National Historical Park Collection, Philadelphia).
Later critics have faulted Sully for his sometimes too-facile brushwork and the soft, idealizing likenesses of his male sitters, but he is still praised for the romantic sensitivity of his female portraits. Here, his quintessential images are those of Elizabeth Eichelberger Ridgely, also known as The Lady with the Harp (1818, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.G.), and the many portraits he painted of the celebrated actress, Frances Anne "Fanny' Kemble. The spirit of dreamy sentiment which infuses these likenesses is also present in Sully's Mother and Child, one of the best-known of over five hundred non-portraits that Sully also created.
Sully has aimed here to evoke both the innocence of childhood and the maternal spirit which he had already embodied a decade earlier in his portrait of Rebecca Mifflin Harrison McMurtrie and Her Son, William (1817, Westmoreland County Museum of Art, Greensburg, Pa.). Nevertheless, the gentle eroticism of the sleeping mother's bared bosom suggests a comparison with and perhaps a debt to John Vanderlyn's Ariadne Asleep and Abandoned by Theseus on the Island of Naxos (1812, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia), one of the best-known, if somewhat notorious, American historical pictures of the period. In turn, the image of the child in Sully's painting, inviting the viewer into the scene with an excellently foreshortened left arm, prefigures what may be Vanderlyn's final treatment of his subject. In Ariadne: Half Length (by 1833, Neville Public Museum, Green Bay, Wis.), a vapid infant Cupid holds back a curtain to reveal the sleeping heroine, now lying amid pillows on a bed, similar to Sully's Mother, and with her garment pulled back only slightly further than those covering the figure in Sully's painting. The soft sfurnato of Sully's gentle shading bespeaks an aesthetic antithetical to the emphatic lighting in Vanderlyn's sharply linear Neoclassic canvas.
The juxtaposition here of Sully's Mother and Child and Vanderlyn's image of Ariadne, both of which combine sentiment and sensuality, is not, in any case, fortuitous, for both images were meant for public exhibition. In fact, yet another of Vanderlyn's Ariadnes (1825-26, Senate House State Historic Site, Kingston, N. Y), joined one version of Sully's Mother and Child in the main salon of the steamer, Albany, one of the most celebrated ships of the day, built by Colonel James A. Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey. The Albany, built in Philadelphia, plied the Hudson River from New York to Albany beginning April 11, 1827, and was considered the finest vessel afloat; presumably all the paintings commissioned for the salon, including Sully's Mother and Child, were completed and installed before that date. Stevens provided an art gallery of twelve pictures for the delectation of his passengers, which also included works by Thomas Cole, Thomas Doughty, Samuel F. B. Morse, Thomas Birch, and Charles B. Lawrence, all the same size, approximately 27 X 44". Indeed, the salon of the Albany may have constituted the finest public art gallery of its day in the United States.
It is almost certain, however, that the Mother and Child in the Butler Institute is actually not the painting created for the Albany, but rather a replica commissioned for two hundred dollars by Dr. Philip Tidyman, a work which was begun on February 10, 1827, and completed August 3, 1827; the latter date is inscribed on the picture's stretcher. Sully lists this as a "Copy," referring to one or both of two paintings he created for Colonel Stevens. One was a "Study" for a Mother and Child, 36 X 18", begun on December 4, 1826 and finished in March, 1827 for "Mr. Stevens"-presumably James A. Stevens. Then, on January 17, 1827, he began "Mr. Stevens picture for steam boat" for $200, and completed it on February 26 Dr. Tidyman's version of the subject was the next work that Sully commenced. All the Albany paintings were painted on heavy mahogany panel for installation in the ship's salon. Thus, the Butler Institute's painting is almost certainly a reflection of Sully's prestigious commission for the steamer. This work was described in terms identical to the Butler Institute's painting in a reminiscence of 1857: "Sully produced a reclining half-length of a young and beautiful mother asleep, and of course, unmindful of her lovely infant lying awake and playful by her side. This was a warm and glowing picture, and one characteristic of the grace and refinement of this accomplished artist."

WILLIAM H. GERDTS