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Identification and Creation

Object Number
H91
People
Gilbert Stuart, American (North Kingstown, RI 1755 - 1828 Boston, MA)
Benjamin Bussey, American (Dedham, MA 1757 - 1842 Dedham, MA)
Frame by John Doggett
Title
Benjamin Bussey (1757-1842)
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1809
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/299878

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
83.2 x 67.7 cm (32 3/4 x 26 5/8 in.)
framed: 101.9 x 86.4 x 9.5 cm (40 1/8 x 34 x 3 3/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: verso of panel, black paint: H91 / BENJAMIN BUSSEY / 1758-1842 / BY G. STUART
  • inscription: verso of panel, graphite: 41 [illegible] 6

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Commissioned, 1809; bequest to wife, Mrs. Benjamin Bussey; bequest to her granddaughter, Maria Bussey Davis (Mrs. Thomas Motley), 1849; on her death to Harvard University, under the terms of the sitter's will, 1894

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard University Portrait Collection, Bequest of Benjamin Bussey, 1894
Object Number
H91
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Lawrence Park, Gilbert Stuart: An lllustrated Descriptive List of His Works, vol. I - IV, W. E. Rudge (New York, NY, 1926), vol. I, p. 194, no. 132
  • Cuthbert Lee, Early American Portrait Painters: The Fourteen Principal Earliest Native-born Painters, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 1929), p. 38
  • Laura M. Huntsinger, Harvard Portraits: A Catalogue of Portrait Paintings at Harvard University, ed. Alan Burroughs, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1936), pp. 33-34
  • Historical Records Survey, Division of Professional and Service Projects, Works Progress Administration, American Portraits, 1620-1825, found in Massachusetts, Volumes 1 and 2, Historical Records Survey (Boston, MA, 1939), p. 63, cat. 337
  • Ida Hay, Science in the Pleasure Ground : A History of the Arnold Arboretum, Northeastern University Press (Boston, MA, 1994)
  • 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. 453-54, cat. 419, ill.
  • Robert Mussey Jr. and Clark Pearce, Rather Elegant than Showy: The Classical Furniture of Isaac Vose, Massachusetts Historical Society and David R. Godine (Boston, 2018), p. 54, fig. 62
  • Harvard & The Legacy of Slavery, website, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, April 25, 2022, p. 26, 96

Exhibition History

  • Entrepreneurship and Classical Design in Boston's South End: The Furniture of Isaac Vose and Thomas Seymour, 1815 to 1825, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 05/10/2018 - 09/14/2018

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