Live Auction 20917From Peale to Peto: American Masters from the Pollack Collection
REMBRANDT PEALE (1778-1860)
Lot 224

REMBRANDT PEALE (1778-1860)

Portrait of Dewitt Clinton

Closed19 January 2023

Price Realised

USD 40,320

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REMBRANDT PEALE (1778-1860)
Portrait of Dewitt Clinton
oil on canvas
27 1/2 x 22 in. (69.9 x 55.9 cm.)
Painted circa 1823.

The Peale Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
M. Thomas & Sons Auctioneers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 6 October 1854, lot 112.
Ferdinand J. Dreer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1854.
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 12 June 1902.
The Philadelphia History Museum at Atwater Kent, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Christie's, New York, 29 September 2010, lot 85, sold by the above.
Acquired by the late owner from the above.

Specialist note

A patron of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, DeWitt Clinton was a statesman who served as mayor of New York City and governor of New York. He was the principal advocate for the construction of the Erie Canal. In 1823 Peale wrote to his father regarding the present portrait which he describes as having been painted in his “new manner” (Frick Art Reference Library, no. 121-15 xx). He paints Clinton against a background of glowing golden clouds which he utilized in many of his portraits painted in New York in the early 1820s (Lillian B. Miller, In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale 1778-1860 (Washington, D.C., 1992), p. 266).