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Anna Maria Cumpston by Charles Peale Polk

Anna Maria Cumpston

Charles Peale Polk·c. 1790

Historical Context

Charles Peale Polk's portrait of Anna Maria Cumpston, painted around 1790, represents the American provincial portrait tradition during the early republic. Polk, nephew of Charles Willson Peale, developed a straightforward portrait style suited to the democratic values of the new nation. His sitters were typically members of the middle and professional classes who valued honest likenesses over aristocratic flattery.

Technical Analysis

Polk's oil-on-canvas technique demonstrates the direct, somewhat flat handling characteristic of American provincial portraiture. The face is rendered with careful attention to individual features, while the simplified background and costume reflect the practical, unpretentious aesthetic of early American portrait painting.

Provenance

Probably by descent from the sitter to her daughter, Emily Williams Cooper (Mrs. Colin Campbell Cooper), Philadelphia; probably her son, Colin Campbell Cooper (1856-1937), Philadelphia, or his sister, Emily, or his brothers, Samuel M. and Ned Cooper; (Victor Spark, New York, 1944); sold 1948 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch;[1] gift 1953 to NGA. [1] A photograph of the painting in the Edgar Preston Richardson Papers, Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C., is inscribed "Victor Spark 1944." Spark described the previous owners of the painting as the sitter's direct descendants (letter of 4 March 1948, NGA curatorial file). Later he wrote that he bought the painting "in Philadelphia from a family with which Colin Campbell Cooper must have been closely connected as the house was filled with his works. I believe that the family's name was Cooper also." (letter of 18 October 1983, NGA curatorial file). Spark's papers, Archives of American Art, offer no information on the history of this painting. For information on Cooper and his relatives see James M. Hansen, _An Exhibition of Paintings by Colin Campbell Cooper_ (Santa Barbara, 1981), unpaginated and _The New York Times_ 7 November 1937, section 2, 9 (obituary).

See It In Person

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

Visit museum website →

Quick Facts

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 147 × 95.6 cm
Era
Neoclassicism
Style
French Neoclassicism
Genre
Portrait
Location
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
View on museum website →

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