Lot 1216 | Rembrandt Peale American, 1778-1860 Portrait of Miss Pratt, 1835-36
Estimated Price:
£Realised Price:
£
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Rembrandt Peale
American, 1778-1860
Portrait of Miss Pratt, 1835-36
Oil on canvas
35 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches
Provenance:
Commissioned from the artist by John Pratt
Schneider Estate
Sale, Parke-Bernet, October 14, 1953, lot 64
Exhibited:
Boston, Massachusetts, Harrison Gray Otis House (before 1953)
Literature:
Sotheby Parke-Bernet, Sale Catalogue 1453, October 14, 1953, lot 64, p. 25, illustrated
On September 7, 1835, Rembrandt Peale wrote to John Pratt of Harris Folly, High Street, Boston, accepting a commission to paint the portraits of his three daughters. (The Lafayette Mss. Collection, Indiana University.) Dr. Carol E. Soltis has documented two of the three paintings, executed in 1835-36: one of Charlotte Pratt, which is privately owned, and this portrait, sold at Parke-Bernet in 1953 as Portrait of Miss Pratt. A third portrait, identified as Eleanor Pratt Purdie, was owned by a descendant of the family in 1931 when it was recorded by the Frick Art Reference Library.
The full name of the fashionably attired subject of the present portrait is unknown. She sits pensively hand to cheek, her swanlike neck, luminous skin and limpid eyes the epitome of nineteenth century standards of beauty. Her elbow rests on a book and sheaf of papers.
Widowed the year prior to accepting the commission to paint the Pratt sisters, Rembrandt Peale seemed much taken with Charlotte, to whom he wrote a poem, praising her blue eyes. The Peale-Sellers Papers at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia owns a typescript of the verses, inscribed "To Miss Charlotte Pratt, sitting for her Portrait." (Courtesy Dr. Carol E. Soltis.)
We are grateful to Dr. Soltis, formerly of The Peale Family Papers, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and compiler of an unpublished catalogue raisonne of the artist's work, for so generously sharing information about Peale's portraits of the Pratt sisters.
Estate of Eleanor Haley Schwartz
Relined. Frame rubbing.
Estimated Price: £
