Mrs. James Gore King (Sarah Rogers Gracie King), Wife of "The Gold Beater"

Alternate TitleMrs. J. King

Artist Thomas Sully (American, born England, 1783 - 1872)

Date1831

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 30 1/16 x 29 1/4 inches (76.36 x 74.3 cm)
Framed: 39 1/2 x 34 1/4 x 3 3/4 inches (100.33 x 87 x 9.53 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number51-47

SignedSigned and dated lower left: TS. 1831

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionHalf-length figure, full face. Lady with white lace cap. Brown cloak over white dress. Blue and gold bracelet. Landscape background.Gallery Label

Gallery Label

Thomas Sully was America’s leading portraitist when he painted Sarah Rogers Gracie King. He used pastel colors and soft, quick brushwork to give King’s image a subtle elegance. In doing so, he created King’s portrait just as he created his portraits of famous individuals, elevating her status. “Resemblance in a portrait is essential,” Sully once commented, “but no fault will be found with the artist, (at least by the sitter,) if he improves the appearance.”

Gallery Label

After the deaths of Gilbert Stuart and Charles Willson Peale in the 1820s, Thomas Sully became America's leading portraitist. He worked quickly, employed pleasing pastel colors and possessed a talent for bringing out the most attractive features in his sitters. "Resemblance in a portrait is essential," he once commented, "but no fault will be found-at least by the sitter-if [the painter] improve the appearance."

This portrait's sitter, Sarah Rogers King, was the wife of the New York congressman James Gore King. A partner in a major New York bank, King is best remembered for halting a run on gold during a financial panic in 1837. Thus, he was nicknamed "The Gold Beater."

Provenance

Commissioned from the artist by Sarah Rogers Gracie King (1791-1878), New York, 1831 [1];

Louis H. Reeves, Sr. (1858-1948), Kansas City, MO, by 1948;

By descent to his son, Louis H. Reeves, Jr. (b. 1900), Kansas City, MO, 1948-1951;

Purchased from Louis H. Reeves, Jr. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1951.

NOTES:

[1] "Account of Pictures painted by Thomas Sully," Thomas Sully Journal, 1792-93 and 1799-1846, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, microfilm reel N18, frame 35. Sully typically recorded the names of the sitter and the person who commissioned the portrait. Since only Sarah King's name is listed (rather than that of her husband, James Gore King (1791-1853)), Sarah King most likely commissioned the portrait herself. See Margaret C. Conrads, ed., The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945, vol. 1 (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2007), 516-19.

Published References

“Account of Pictures Painted by Thomas Sully,” Thomas Sully
Journal, 1792–93 and 1799–1846, Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution, microfilm reel N18, frames 35, 350 (as
Mrs. King [Consort J. King Gold Beater]); Thomas Sully Register
[account of pictures painted by Thomas Sully], 1801–71, unpagi
nated (as Mrs King [Consort J. King, Goldbeater]); Charles Henry
Hart, “Thomas Sully’s Register of Portraits, 1801–1871,” Penn
sylvania Magazine of History and Biography 32 (1908), 63 (as
Mrs. King, “Consort of J King, Gold Beater”); Charles Henry Hart,
A Register of Portraits Painted by Thomas Sully, 1808–1871 (Phila
delphia: Charles Henry Hart, 1909), 96 (as Mrs. King, “Consort of
J King, Gold Beater”); Edward Biddle and Mantle Fielding, The
Life and Works of Thomas Sully, 1783–1872 (1921; Charleston,
S.C.: Garnier & Company, 1969), 198 (as Mrs. J. King); NAMA
1959, 257 (as Mrs. J. King); NAMA 1973, 255 (as Mrs. J. King);
Ross Taggart, “American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,” Antiques 122 (November 1982),
1030 (as Mrs. J. King); Those Beguiling Women, exh. cat. (Kansas
City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 8, 22 (as Portrait of Mrs. J. King, Wife of the “Gold Beater”); NAMA 1991,
32–33 (as Mrs. James Gore King [Sarah Rogers King], Wife of
“The Gold Beater”); NAMA 1993a, 232 (as Portrait of Mrs. James
Gore King).

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