Thomas Sully (Horncastle, Lincolnshire, 1783 - 1872, Philadelphia)
Isabella Tod Stewart, 1837
Oil on canvas, 75 x 62 cm (29 1/2 x 24 7/16 in.)
This slightly vertical oil on canvas portrait depicts Isabella Tod Stewart. Here she is seen from her upper arms and torso on up. The focus is on her light-skinned oval face which is slightly turned to her left, her long, straight nose separating two blue eyes, holding the gaze of the viewer and arched with light brown eyebrows. Mrs. Stewart’s cheeks are rosy, her thin, straight lips pink-tinged. Dark brown, short ringlets flank her face. A frilly white transparent cap surrounds her head with loosely flowing ties knotted under her chin. She wears a plain black dress, with a subtle ruffled cape-like covering over her shoulders. She appears to be sitting in a largely unseen chair, other than the hint of the top of a wooden backrest behind her shoulders. A light gray and white filmy swatch of fabric covers her right arm terminating in her lap. An unknown small rounded coral- colored object rests in the bottom left hand corner of the painting, providing the only non-neutral color in this work. A light source from the front brightly illuminates her face, the background left in mostly dark gray tones.
Short Gallery
Commentary
Isabella Tod Stewart was Isabella Stewart Gardner's paternal grandmother and namesake. This portrait was painted by Thomas Sully--an American artist famous for having painted Queen Victoria. Sully’s canvas shows a graceful woman with fair coloring and wearing an almost translucent bonnet. This painting, probably passed down to the younger Isabella’s father David Stewart and then to her, was a family heirloom and likely treasured by the founder. She displayed it in the Short Gallery opposite her own portrait by Anders Zorn.