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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1957.1
People
Washington Allston, American (Georgetown, SC 1779 - 1843 Cambridge, MA)
Title
The Sisters
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1816-1817
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/228568

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
127.7 x 102.9 cm (50 1/4 x 40 1/2 in.)
framed: 161.3 x 137.2 x 11.4 cm (63 1/2 x 54 x 4 1/2 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • label: [formerly on back of canvas, now in conservation file]: Cambridgeport, January 29, 1839. Received of Francis Alexander fifteen hundred dollars for the picture of The Sisters painted by me.

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Purchased from the artist by Francis Alexander, Boston, MA, January 1839; William Gray, before 1863; Anne Sturgis (Mrs. Samuel) Hooper, before June 1879, by descent; to Thornton K. Lothrop, Boston, c. 1884, by descent; to Anne M. (Mrs. Thornton K.) Lothrop, c. 1913, by descent; to her daughter Amy Lothrop (Mrs. Algernon) Coolidge, April 1915, by descent; to her daughter Anne Coolidge (Mrs. Edward W.) Moore, c. 1954, gift; to the Fogg Art Museum, 1957.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Mrs. Edward W. Moore
Accession Year
1957
Object Number
1957.1
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • [Letter from Henry W. Longfellow to Samuel Ward], March 11, 1839, Unpublished, Houghton Library, Harvard University
  • Exhibition of Pictures Painted by Washington Allston, exh. cat., Harding's Gallery (Boston, MA, 1839), p. 7
  • Elizabeth P. Peabody, Remarks on Allston's Painting (Boston, MA, 1839), pp. 11-12
  • "A Record of Impressions Produced by the Exhibition of Mr. Allston's Pictures in the Summer of 1839", The Dial (Boston, MA, July 1840), vol. I, no. 1, pp. 81-82
  • Catalogue of Pictures Lent to the Sanitary Fair for Exhibition Together With a Catalogue of Paintings and Statuary of the Athenaeum Gallery, exh. cat., Fred Rogers (Boston, MA, 1863), p. 14
  • Sarah Clarke, "Our First Great Painter, and His Works", The Atlantic Monthly (February 1865), vol. XV, p. 137
  • Moses Foster Sweetser, Allston (Boston, MA, 1879), pp. 114, 187
  • Exhibition of the Works of Washington Allston, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1881), p. 14
  • Mrs. Anna Jameson, "Washington Allston", The Anglo-American (Boston, MA, February 24, 1884), vol. II
  • Walter Montgomery, ed., American Art and American Art Collections (Boston, MA, 1889), pp. 731-732
  • Jared B. Flagg, The Life and Letters of Washington Allston, Charles Scribner's Sons (New York, NY, 1892), pp. 192-193, ill. p. 318
  • Julia Ward Howe, Reminiscences: 1819-1899 (Boston, MA and New York, NY, 1899), p. 430
  • Edgar P. Richardson, "Allston and the Development of Romantic Color", The Art Quarterly (Winter 1944), vol. VII, pp. 33-57, p. 53, ill. p. 48
  • Edgar P. Richardson, Washington Allston, 1779-1843, a loan exhibition of paintings, drawings and memorabilia, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI, 1947), no. 19, ill. p. 25
  • Elizabeth H. Jones, "Washington Allston's Painting Technique and His Place in the Coloristic Tradition" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, May 1947), Unpublished, pp. 1-13 passim
  • Fogg Art Museum and Benjamin Rowland, Jr., Real and Ideal in American Art, exh. cat. (Cambridge, MA, Summer 1948), cat. 5
  • Edgar P. Richardson, Washington Allston: A Study of the Romantic Artist in America, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL, 1948), pp. 121-122, 178, 204, no. 109, pl. XLIV
  • Thomas W. Leavitt, "Washington Allston at Harvard", Harvard Alumni Bulletin (Cambridge, MA, April 21, 1956), vol. 58, no. 13, p. 552
  • Jules David Prown, "The Sisters by Washington Allston", The Annual Report of the Fogg Art Museum 1956-1957, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1958), pp. 45-48, p. 45-48, ill. p. 47
  • Elizabeth Johns, "Washington Allston's Library", The American Art Journal (November 1975), vol. VII, no. 2, pp. 32-41, pp. 32, p. 41, fig. 6
  • Elizabeth Johns, "Washington Allston: Method, Imagination and Reality", Winterthur Portfolio (Wilmington, DE, 1977), vol. 12, pp. 1-18, p. 14
  • William H. Gerdts and Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., "A Man of Genius": The Art of Washington Allston (1779-1843), exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1979), pp. 75, 94-95, 169, cat. 37, ill., also ill. on back cover
  • Elizabeth Johns, "Washington Allston's Later Career: Art About the Making of Art", Arts Magazine (December 1979), vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 122-129, p. 125
  • William H. Gerdts, "'Hermia and Helena' by Washington Allston", Art at Auction: The Year at Sotheby & Parke Bernet, 1981-82 (1982), pp. 36-41, p. 39, fig. 3
  • Elizabeth Garrity Ellis, "The 'Intellectual and Moral Made Visible': Te 1839 Washington Allston Exhibition and Unitarian Taste in Boston", Prospects (1985), vol. 10, pp. 39-76, pp. 51-52, fig. 9
  • Gerald Eager, "Washington Allston's The Sisters: Poetry, Painting, and Friendship", Word and Image (October 1990 - December 1990), vol. VI, no. 4, pp. 298-307, fig. 1, ill.
  • Nathalia Wright, ed., The Correspondence of Washington Allston, The University Press of Kentucky (Lexington, KY, 1993), pp. 64, 128, 404, 429, 487, 539, 548. 563, 588
  • Diana J. Strazdes, "Washington Allston's 'Beatrice'", Journal of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1994), vol. 6, pp. 63-75, pp. 68-69, fig. 8
  • Wendy Greenhouse, "Daniel Huntington and the Ideal of Christian Art", Winterthur Portfolio, Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum (Winterthur, DE, Summer 1996 - Autumn 1996), vol. 31, nos. 2 and 3, pp. 103-140, fig. 14
  • Gurion Taussig, Coleridge and the Idea of Friendship, 1789-1804, University of Delaware Press (Newark, DE, 2002), p. 325, ill. p. 326
  • Morton D. Paley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Fine Arts, Oxford University Press (UK) (Oxford, UK, 2008), pp. 118-124, fig. 15
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. and Melissa Renn, American Paintings at Harvard, Volume One: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born before 1826, Yale University Press (U.S.) and Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge and New Haven, 2014), pp. 60-61, cat. 17, ill.

Exhibition History

  • Exhibition of Pictures Painted by Washington Allston, Harding's Gallery, Boston, 01/01/1839 - 12/31/1839
  • The Sanitary Fair Exhibition, Boston Athenaeum, Boston, 01/01/1863 - 12/31/1863
  • Washington Allston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 06/01/1881 - 09/01/1881
  • [Washington Allston Exhibition], Symphony Hall, Boston, 04/01/1946 - 04/30/1946
  • Washington Allston, 1779-1843: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Memorabilia, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, 05/11/1947 - 06/15/1947; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 07/17/1947 - 08/24/1947
  • Real and Ideal in American Art, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/01/1948 - 09/01/1948
  • American Paintings from the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Symphony Hall, Boston, 02/21/1958 - 03/15/1958
  • "A Man of Genius": The Art of Washington Allston (1779-1843), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 12/12/1979 - 02/03/1980; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 02/28/1980 - 04/27/1980

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu