For eight years, Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl, son of Ralph Earl (see B.76.184), lived in the White House, where he satisfied the enormous demand for portraits of the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson (1767–1845). This portrait relates to four others of the same sitter (see related examples). Here, in contrast to earlier versions, Earl reduced the props and background detail considerably. Like most, if not all, of Earl’s portraits of Jackson, this portrait likely belonged to Andrew Jackson Donelson, a member of the president’s staff, and the nephew of the president’s wife, Rachel Donelson Jackson.

Related examples: Earl painted four other portraits of Jackson that relate stylistically to Bayou Bend’s: the Hermitage, Hermitage, Tennessee; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, John Frederick Lewis Memorial Collection, Philadelphia; Friends of Linden Place, Bristol, Rhode Island; and a private collection. 

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.