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Portrait 1956-237
Portrait of Frances Ann Tasker Carter (Mrs. Robert Carter III, 1738-1787)
Portrait 1956-237

Portrait of Frances Ann Tasker Carter (Mrs. Robert Carter III, 1738-1787)

Date1755-1758
Attributed to John Wollaston (ca. 1710-ca. 1767)
OriginAmerica, Virginia
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed 50" x 39 1/2" and Framed: 56 1/2" x 46" x 2"
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1956-237,A&B
DescriptionA three-quarter-length portrait of a young woman shown standing. She is turned in three-quarter view towards the onlooker's left, her head to the front, her eyes on the viewer. Her proper right arm rests on the horizontal surface of a brown stone pedestal, beyond which is a dark, vague suggestion of a draped curtain. The background to the viewer's right is a landscape with trees. Her proper left arm is dropped to her side and pulled slightly to the back, with her fingers loosely clasping one end of a length of deep blue fabric. Her dress, of a creamy-white satin-finish fabric, has a low, square-cut neckline edged with lace; the bodice comes to a point below the waist and, at the center of her neckline, she wears a brooch consisting of two loops of pearls centering a trapezoidal-cut stone, from which dangles a pear-shaped pendant. She has brown eyes. Her chin-length, curly, dark brown hair is brushed back away from her face and hangs loose.

The frame in which the portrait was acquired in 1956 was in poor condition and was assessed as of nineteenth century origin (see file correspondence with Caroline Keck 1956). It was removed from the painting, but its disposition remains undocumented. The period replacement frame currently on the painting (4/29/2011) was acquired from the Old Print Shop, New York, NY, in 1956; it is black-stained pearwood with a gilt liner.
Label TextFrances Tasker married Robert Carter III of Nomini Hall plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1754. Her portrait may have been painted about that time, probably as a pendant to the fine portrait that Thomas Hudson had painted of her husband when he studied in England. Frances was the daughter of Ann Bladen Tasker and Benjamin Tasker Jr., one of the wealthiest and most influential men in colonial Maryland. Wollaston painted portraits for the Tasker family before coming to Virginia. Although it is possible that Frances’s portrait was painted in Maryland, it was more likely painted in Virginia as a pendant to the Thomas Hudson likeness of her husband.
The elaborately draped blue fabric that extends across the sitter’s dress is an uncommon feature in Wollaston’s three-quarter and full-length likenesses, although it was used in England by Thomas Hudson, whose work Wollaston imitated. Its inclusion made the portrait more elegant and expensive, perhaps as a way to balance its decorative appeal when hung next to the likeness of her husband.


ProvenanceAccording to records at the Frick Art Reference Library, New York, NY (see Hannah J. Howell to CWF 5 July 1956), the portrait descended:
From the subject to her son, George Carter (1777-1841), of Oatlands plantation, Loudon Co., Va.; to "his direct descendant" (exact relationship unverified), George C. Carter of Leesburg, Va.; to his son, Robert C. Carter, Salisbury, Md.; [presumably sold] to CWF's source, dealer Miss Eunice Chambers of Hartsville, SC.




Exhibition(s)