Portrait of Ruth Stanley Mix (Mrs. John Mix)(1756-1811)

DateProbably 1788

Mediumoil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 32 1/2" x 25 1/2" and Framed: 36 5/8" x 30"

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1940.100.1

DescriptionOil portrait of young woman seated in chair, half-length against tan-brown background. Woman turned slightly to her right while looking outward towards viewer. Chair is wooden side chair. She wears a lavender dress with V waistline, elbow length sleeves, with white ruffled lace cuffs, and neat horizonal brick-brack type embroidery at elbows, and a white lace scart over her shoulders and held fastened in front with an oval pin. She wears a pin rose with bud fastened at her bodice. She is painted in the act of sewing or threading a needle held awkwardly in her right hand, and some sheer white fabric is visible on her lap. Her brown hair is dressed high over her forehead, and two long curls fall down on her shoulders. She wears a narrow black ribbon tied in a bow around her neck. On top of her high coiffure, she wears a fairly elaborate hat of white lace and gauze on a white hat with floral decoration on the front of it. The elaborate lace falls down in back, and several feathers or plumes are visible which match her dress. Her eyes are blue. Her hands are very simply and clumsily articulated and the position of her right hand is impossible to form.
Label TextThe identity of the artist responsible for this portrait and its companion of John Mix is the subject of continuing debate. The paintings were attributed first to an artist named McKay because of superficial similarities between Mrs. Mix's pose and that of Mrs. John Bush in McKay's signed portrait (in another collection). In a subsequent article in Art in America, Susan Sawitzky further discussed the authorship of the Mix portraits and their relationship to paintings by Abraham Delanoy and Reuben Moulthrop, both of whom are known to have worked in the New Haven area. Sawitzky ascribed the painting of the faces to Delanoy and the execution of the figures to Moulthrop, who may have served briefly as Delanoy's assistant. While some aspects of the Mix portraits do compare closely with works by those artists, dissimilarities exist, particularly in the manner of drawing and rendering the subtle volume and planes of the faces, that cannot be disregarded.
Part of the controversy over attribution arises from the differences in the painting techniques used to delineated the sitters' faces and their costumes. The edges of their costumes are neatly outlined in darker tones, modeling and shading being used sparingly to achieve depth. The anatomical drawing of the hands is adequate at best, and in no way approaches the subtle, correctly rendered structure achieved in the faces. Unlike the costumes, the faces are powerful in both form and coloration and were painted swiftly with assurance and facility. The costumes and hands may very well represent another artist's efforts or they may simply indicate restraint or disinterest on the part of someone more concerned with realistic faces than with the intricacies of fabrics, a not uncommon attitude among America's early portraitists.
Very little is known about the sitters. Ruth was the daughter of Noah and Ruth Norton Stanley. They lived in Farmington, Connecticut, where Noah kept a local tavern. John was the son of Jonathan and Mary Peck Mix, also of Connecticut. The sitters' marriage date is unknown, but they rpobably moved to New Britain soon thereafter. John served on the town's committee to plan a new school in 1793, and by 1796 he was grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Connecticut.
Inscribed"Ruth Stanley, born July 15,1768" is written on the verso of the original canvas, and inscribed on its original stretcher was "Ruth Stanley, born July 15, 1756, married John Mix of New Haven." According to an early note in AARFAM's archives, Edith Gregor Halpert saw these inscriptions before the painting was lined and the original stretchers removed.
ProvenanceFound in Connecticut by Ginsberg and Levy,Inc and puchased from Edith Gregor Halpert by Mrs. Rockefeller. Given to C. W. by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.