Portrait of the Artist

Gilbert Stuart

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Preserved on a label found on the back of this picture are excerpts from a letter dated December 6, 1884, in which Jane Stuart, the artist's youngest daughter, wrote of the work and her father, "He painted a small sketch of himself for my mother (in London after great persuasion) but could not be induced to finish it." This suggests that the portrait was painted when Stuart was about age thirty, shortly after his marriage to Charlotte Coates on May 10, 1786. Stuart's sketchily indicated tousled hair and sunken eyes emphasize both his proud and irritable character and his working method.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art