John Trumbull
Portrait of Sarah Hope Harvey (Mrs. John Trumbull, 1774–1824)

Portrait of Sarah Hope Harvey (Mrs. John Trumbull, 1774–1824)

Public Domain

Portrait of Sarah Hope Harvey (Mrs. John Trumbull, 1774–1824)
ArtistAmerican, 1756–1843
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Portrait of Sarah Hope Harvey (Mrs. John Trumbull, 1774–1824)
Datec.1820–1823
PlaceNew York, United States
MediumOil on panel
DimensionsPanel: 24 1/8 × 53 in. (61.3 × 134.6 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by the Theta Charity Antiques Show
Object numberB.91.25
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Federal Parlor
Exposé

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

Among the most important artists and cultural figures in American history, John Trumbull sprang from aristocratic roots in Lebanon, Connecticut, graduated from Harvard College, rose to the rank of colonel in the Revolutionary War, and moved to Boston during the war to embark on a painting career. Trumbull took several trips to England, visiting Benjamin West (see B.67.26 and B.67.25) and John Singleton Copley (see B.54.31, B.54.21, B.54.25, B.54.18, B.54.26, B.54.27, B.54.29, B.54.28, and B.54.30), both of whom advised this young, ambitious, and well-educated artist. After vigorous efforts in England and the United States to paint the most significant events of the Revolutionary War, Trumbull engaged in a brief career in diplomacy beginning in 1794 before returning to his brush in 1800, the same year he married Sarah Hope Harvey Trumbull (1774–1824), the subject of this portrait. The couple moved to New York, where they lived from 1804–8, and again from 1815 until his death in 1843. In 1817, he received the commission to paint four of the eight paintings in the Capitol Rotunda that commemorate the Revolutionary War. Trumbull served on the board of the American Academy of Fine Arts, New York, and was its president for nineteen years. His increasingly dogmatic prescriptions for the advancement of the arts alienated younger generations, and toward the end of his life, his professional disappointments and bleak financial situation prompted him to enter into an unusual but significant agreement: to donate all of his works and papers to Yale College in exchange for a lifetime annuity. The Trumbull Gallery, originally built in 1832 and now part of the Yale University Art Gallery, was the first college art museum built in this country.

Trumbull painted his wife, about whom little is known, at least thirteen times. Scholars have suggested that she was previously married to someone with the surname Harvey and that Trumbull may have found himself in a situation in which he was obliged to marry her. Evidently anxious about the reception his wife would receive at home among his aristocratic friends and family, he sent home as a kind of introduction a portrait of his bride dressed elegantly in white, clutching a cross at her breast (Sarah Trumbull in a White Dress, c. 1800, Mrs. Charles Higgins), followed by an apologetic letter to his brother Jonathan in which he provided some scant biographical information about her. He described her as “beautiful beyond the usual beauty of women!” and seems to have remained devoted to her despite her bouts of emotional instability and alcoholism.

Sarah Trumbull was almost fifty when her husband painted her here, dressed in black with a brilliant white stand-falling ruff, or layered collar, its vivid whites are echoed in her lace-edged cuffs and cap. Her narrow face, the down-turned ends of her eyes, the thin, angular nose, and pronounced curves of her lips are familiar features in the many portraits of her Trumbull painted. The portrait perhaps suggests the artist’s ideal image of his wife as a feminized, demure beauty and, in this regard, makes an interesting comparison with George Romney’s serial paintings of Emma, Lady Hamilton, which Trumbull would have known from his journey to London in the 1780s.

Related examples: The most closely related of Trumbull’s thirteen other portraits of his wife are Mrs. John Trumbull as “Innocence,” 1816–24, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; Miniature of Mrs. Trumbull, private collection; and Mrs. John Trumbull in a Lace Cap, Lt. Col. Trumbull Warren, Corwhin Acres, Puslinch, Ontario. Also, a pencil sketch of Sarah as “Innocence,” c. 1816, is included in “Trumbull’s Autobiography interleaved with extra original drawings” (Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven).

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.


ProvenanceThe artist’s brother David Trumbull (1751/52–1822), Lebanon, Connecticut; given to his daughter Mrs. Peter Lanman (née Abigail Trumbull, 1781–1861), Lebanon, Connecticut; given to her daughter Mrs. Frederic Bull, Connecticut; given to her son William Lanman Bull, New York; given to Frederic Bull, New Canaan, Connecticut; given to Mrs. Helen Bull Richardson, New York; [Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, sale 4038, October 27, 1977, lot 1]; purchased by Mr. and Mrs. George Arden; Mrs. George Arden, until 1983; [Christie’s, New York, sale 7304, May 22, 1991, lot 1]; purchased by MFAH, 1991.
Exhibition History"The Masterpieces of Bayou Bend, 1620–1870," Bayou Bend Museum of Americana at Tenneco, Houston, TX, September 22, 1991–February 26, 1993.

"Theta Antique Show" at the Reliant Astrohall, Sept. 11–15, 2002.


Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

The Death of General Montgomery, In the Attack of Quebec, December 1775
Johan Frederik Clemens
1798
Engraving and etching on laid paper, proof before title
B.2007.7
Jaspar de Charles van Nieuwenhoven
Sir Anthony van Dyck
1620
Oil on wood
52.57
Sarah Harding
John Astley
1730–1787
Oil on canvas
94.881
Blouse
Marc Bohan
c. 1987
Silk, rayon, and rhinestones
2002.52
Dress
James Galanos
c. 1992
Plain weave wool, felt wool, silk, satin, satin ribbon, metal, and plastic
2000.494
Ensemble
Karl Lagerfeld
c. 1970
Wool boucle, silk, plastic, metal, and china silk
99.619.A-.D
The Crux of Spring
Alice Trumbull Mason
1954
Oil on canvas
80.40
America Presenting at the Altar of Liberty, Medallions of Her Illustrious Sons
John Trumbull
c. 1785
Copperplate-printed cotton
B.2020.5
Suit
John Galliano
c. 1998
Wool, polyamide, viscose, and acetate
2001.588.A,.B
Thomas Barrett-Lennard, 17th Lord Dacre
Andrea Soldi
1736–1744
Oil on canvas
2008.30
Ensemble
Richard Tyler
1993
Velvet and cotton
97.431.A-.E
Portrait of Elizabeth Garland (Mrs. Paul Richard, 1700–1774)
John Singleton Copley
1771
Oil on canvas
B.54.18