Images(4)

D2007-CMD-0435 - digital composition of ,1 and ,2

Miniature Portrait of St. George Tucker (1752-1827)

Date1798

Artist Pierre Henri (ca. 1760-1822)

OriginAmerica, Virginia

MediumWatercolor on ivory

DimensionsSight: 2 7/16 x 1 15/16in. (6.2 x 4.9cm) and Framed (Excluding hanging ring): 4 3/4 x 3 7/8in.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object number2007-45,1

DescriptionA miniature bust-length portrait of a man. He wears a dark blue coat and waistcoat with a white shirt and neckcloth, the latter tied in a bow at his throat. He has brown eyes and wears a powdered wig drawn back in a queue. The background is plain and stippled overall.
The rectangular-shaped black-lacquered paper mache frame has an oval aperture and brass mounts, the brass hanging ring at top center being attached to an ornamental cast acorn. The frame is believed to be a replacement dating from the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
Label TextToday, Williamsburg visitors routinely admire his spacious frame house on Nicholson Street, and legal historians revere his name, but few can conjure an image of the man himself. St. George Tucker (1752-1827) was one of the town's best-known, most highly-regarded citizens, yet portraits of him are scarce. This miniature likenesses was acquired in 2007 accompanied by another, of Tucker's second wife, Lelia Skipwith Carter (1767-after 1833). The pair were painted by the peripatetic, French-born artist, Pierre Henri (ca. 1760-1822), who is known to have worked in Alexandria and Richmond in Virginia, as well as in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New York, and New Orleans.

Tucker served as Judge of the Virginia General Court in 1788 and was a professor of law at the College of William and Mary. In 1803, he was elected to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and, in 1813, was appointed U. S. District Court judge for the state. He also produced the most important law text of his day, an annotated edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, published in five volumes in 1803.
InscribedInscribed at lower right: "P.H./98".

A dust cover on the back of the frame is inscribed in script in ink and perhaps dates from the 1940s or 1950s; it reads: "St. George Tucker/1752-1828 [sic] graduated/from William and/Mary in 1772/Lieutenant Colonel/at York Town married/Frances Bland in/1778 Mother of John/Randolph -- Author/of books on law and/Chancellor of William/and Mary College." The handwriting appears to match that on the dust cover of 2007-45,2.
ProvenanceAccording to Elle Shushan, who bid on 2007-45, 1 and 2007-45, 2 at the Kabe auction on 4/26/2007 on behalf of CWF, the two likenesses once belonged to Edna Alling Doherty of 140 Riverside Dr., New York, NY. The Kabe auction emptied a house in Connecticut (town name not yet known) that, Shushan speculates, had belonged to one of Edna's children. The auction included quantities of receipts for miniatures from the 1940s, but none matched the description of this pair. Many of the minscellaneous receipts named dealer Samuel Spergel, who had galleries in Philadelphia and New York City; therefore, it is conceivable that 2007-45, 1 and 2007-45, 2 passed through his hands.