W A R N I N G!
The Original Sketch of the Head
for the
Lansdowne Full Length
All Collectors, Museums, Dealers and other interested parties are advised to take no part in the buying or selling of a certain oil painting:-
Portrait of
Washington, by Gilbert Stuart
This portrait head is entirely my personal property. It is now being held by a certain party without my consent, who refuses to return it to me. I wish to warn anyone interested that the present holder of it has not my permission to negotiate its sale and that he cannot deliver title.
Very respectfully,
J. F. MacCARTHY.
339 Lexington Ave., N. Y. City.
Any portrait by Gilbert Stuart is worth from ten thousand dollars up. That there should be a new discovery of a Gilbert Stuart painting, especially one of George Washington, was a great surprise to me. And I know J. F. MacCarthy. He is one of those ideal antique dealers who could not help being one. Of course he sells the paintings, engravings and etchings he discovers, but I am sure he would prefer to keep them if circumstances did not compel him to earn a living, even as you and I. MacCarthy is a well-known figure in auction rooms all over town. He is well known down on Fourth Avenue, where old clothes, damaged shoes, cheap furniture is sold, together with works of art, tapestries, paintings, as well as in those fashionable auction rooms on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, which look like the orchestra of a theatre, where the visitors sit in comfortable plush chairs.
On Fourth Avenue, the auctioneers urge the people to buy, use all the tricks of their much-maligned trade to bring up the price a quarter of a dollar at a time. In the fashionable parts of the city, the auctioneers are well-posed orators who seem to beg the crowds not to buy because they will get so much better prices tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. These auctioneers are studies in themselves. At any rate they are excellent psychologists. And MacCarthy is their great friend. He knows perhaps more than they do. He gives them valuable pointers and he is such a pleasant chap to talk to because he knows stories and tells them well.
So I went up to his shop, which really is not a shop but a sort of connoisseur's den, and asked him about the "ad" he inserted. "Tell me about it," I cried. "Was the picture stolen from you? How did you ever get hold of a real Gilbert Stuart? How long have you had it? Why didn't you ever show it and where is it now?"
MacCarthy is rather slow in his movements and in his speech. He settled himself comfortably in an old Chippendale chair, supposed to have been owned by General Beauregarde, and began in his epic manner:
"You did see the picture. I had it almost eight years. I had it long before I moved to Lexington Avenue. I bought it at the James Sutton sale. It was catalogued as a painting by Wertmuller, supposed to represent George Washington. Wertmuller was a Swiss painter of fame, who came to this country about 1790. Washington sat for him and later on he made several copies of the original portrait. His picture evidently didn't interest the public very much during that sale and I bought it for little money. I had it in the shop for years. Many people looked at it, but not one seemed to pay any attention to it. It was not a good painting of Washington; the likeness was rather poor and the whole thing looked unfinished.
"One afternoon last year I was looking for some painting in my attic and there I ran across the Washington portrait. I took it downstairs to this room, where we are now sitting. I looked at it for a good long while, perhaps for the first time since I had bought it, and it struck me as strange that Wertmuller should have painted Washington's eyes as brown, when everybody knows that Washington had blue eyes. The paint seemed very heavy in certain spots and the idea struck me that the whole portrait had been overpainted. I took a little solvent, touched up the eyes and you can imagine how astonished I was to see that the color came off.
"I was very careful, of course, but my interest was aroused. I spent the whole afternoon removing the paint from the eyes. My work was rewarded. Beautiful blue eyes were beneath the coat of paint. I tried the solvent on other parts of the picture and soon I found that the whole canvas had been overpainted. In the course of a week I had removed the entire coat of overpaint and beneath it was an entirely different painting.
"It was a beautiful portrait of Washington, but surely not the work of Wertmuller. I spent another week cleaning it and restoring the painting. It was unmistakably Gilbert Stuart, but it was entirely unlike any other Stuart picture of Washington.
"I at once went to the library and studied the work of Stuart, comparing carefully all paintings he had ever done with the one in my possession. The pose was exactly the same as that of his "Lansdowne" portrait.
"Lord Lansdowne was a very celebrated connoisseur who met Gilbert Stuart during the artist's sojourn in London and commissioned him to paint a life-size portrait of General Washington in 1796. It is a matter of record that Gilbert Stuart executed this order under grave difficulties.
"France had sent innumerable painters to Mt. Vernon to paint the first President of the new Republic. Hundreds of artists from all parts of Europe came to America in order to paint Washington and on the strength of having painted Washington to receive commissions from the first families of America. Washington had grown tired of giving sittings to all these painters, some of whom were really great artists, but others second-rate craftsmen, who wished to build their reputations upon a Washington portrait painted from life. Gilbert Stuart begged Washington to sit for him again, but Washington had sworn off once for all. Then Stuart used his influence among Washington's friends and finally Mrs. Bingham, a great favorite of George Washington in 1796 and also a great friend of the artist, succeeded.
"The following letter is on record in the Library of Congress:
"Sir:-I am under promise to Mrs. Bingham to sit for you tomorrow at nine o'clock, and wishing to know if it be convenient to you that I should do so, and whether it shall be at your own home (as she talked of the State House), I send this note to ask information. I am, sir, your obedient servant,"
"GEORGE WASHINGTON."
"Monday evening, 11th April, 1796."
"Stuart describes in a letter to Mrs. Bingham, Washington's visit to his studio. The great man was nervous, ill-tempered and considered the whole thing an imposition upon his kindness."
"I give you an hour," he cried after entering the studio. "Tell me in what position you want me and do your work quickly. I am tired and I want to get back home."
Washington's nervousness proved contagious. Stuart became so nervous that he hardly knew what he was doing. He realized that he never could induce Washington to sit again, so he took a canvas and threw in hurriedly Washington's face in broad strokes. He had set all his hopes upon this life-size portrait. He had made arrangements with a steel engraver to have the portrait engraved. He knew that everybody would buy a good portrait of Washington and that his success would not only crown his achievement as an artist but also make him financially independent for the rest of his life.
He made a color sketch of Washington's features as well as he could. It was a short sketch of the head. Later on he engaged three different men to pose for the full length of the body. The Library of Congress retains the correspondence of Gilbert Stuart with Martha Washington, who loaned him a complete wardrobe of her husband, her husband's sword and cape, to be worn by the models.
Stuart's portrait not only pleased Lord Lansdowne but it became the portrait of General Washington. The steel engravings in life size were sold out the very week that they had been struck off. Millions of copies circulated all over the world. But the original sketch of the head was lost. Almost every work as well about Gilbert Stuart as about George Washington's portrait contains the notice that the original sketch in colors of Lansdowne has been lost.
"My picture was that very sketch. I proved it conclusively. It would lead too far to tell you about the months of detective work I put in tracing back the proprietors of this painting for the last one hundred and fifty years. I was successful, and of course you can imagine how much the painting is worth.
"One day a well known art dealer of Philadelphia strolled into my shop and I told him the story as I have told it to you.
"'I will sell the picture for you,' he said. 'Give me 50 per cent commission and I'll sell it quickly.'
"I knew the man; he had sold very valuable paintings in the past. In fact, everybody in the art world knows him. I simply cried: 'Go to it! Get me the best price that you can get.'
"He took the picture along with him and that is the last I ever heard of it. I let the matter rest for several months and then wrote him a letter requesting the return of the picture.
"His astounding answer came back: He claimed to be half owner of the painting; as I had let him in on the 50 per cent profit-sharing basis he refused to give up the painting.
"I went to my lawyer and my lawyer told me: 'You are stung. That gentleman certainly did you. There are only two ways of action open for you. You either sue him for the value of the picture; no doubt you will get a...
