Dr. William Aspinwall
Framed: 35 3/4 x 30 3/4 inches (90.81 x 78.11 cm)
[“Loan Collection of Portraits”], Boston Medical Library, December 1878, no cat.
Loan Exhibit of Early American Portraits, Boston Art Club, November 4–25, 1911, no. 47.
Gilbert Stuart Memorial Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, October 24–December 9, 1928, no. 7.
A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., October 14–December 6, 1987, no. 72.
Typical of most of his portraits, Gilbert Stuart painted William Aspinwall in a bust-length, three quarters profile view. He depicted the Boston doctor with his hair tied using a black queue bow, an antiquated style by 1815, but one befitting a man born in 1743. Stuart rendered Aspinwall's face with his celebrated animated brushwork. Layering shades of gray, green, pink and white, the artist conveyed the texture and coloring of an elderly man's skin and created a striking impression of life.
to William Aspinwall Tappan (grandson of the sitter), Brookline, Mass., by descent, 1873;
to Mary Aspinwall Tappan, Boston, and Ellen Sturgis Tappan Dixey, Boston (great-granddaughters of the sitter), by bequest, 1905;
to Mary Aspinwall Tappan, Boston, and Rosamond Sturgis Dixey Brooks (great-great-granddaughter of the sitter), Brookline, Mass., by bequest, 1924;
to Shepherd Brooks (great-great-great-grandson of the sitter), Cambridge, Mass., by bequest, 1948;
to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1981. [Note: When Mrs. Dixey died in 1924 she willed her half of the painting to Rosamond Brooks, but Mary Tappan owned her portion until her death in 1941.]
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Portraits Painted by the Late Gilbert Stuart, Esq., exh. cat. (Boston: Eastburn, 1828), 7 (as Dr. Aspinwall).
George C. Mason, The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1879), 130.
Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart, exh. cat., 1st ed. (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, Printers, 1880), 27 (as Dr. Aspinwall).
Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart, exh. cat., 2nd ed. (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, Printers, 1880), 29 (as Dr. Aspinwall).
Dedication of the New Building and Hall of the Boston Medical Library Association, 19 Boylston Place, December 3, 1878 (Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1881), 38.
Algernon Aikin Aspinwall, The Aspinwall Genealogy, Compiled by Algernon Aikin Aspinwall, Washington, D.C., Published by the Author (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle Co., 1901), 55.
Loan Exhibit of Early American Portraits, exh. cat. (Boston: Southgate Press, 1911), unpaginated.
Howard A. Kelly and Walter L. Burrage, American Medical Biographies (Baltimore: Norman, Remington Company, 1920), 44.
Lawrence Park, Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of His Works Compiled by Lawrence Park; with an Account of His Life by John Hill Morgan and an Appreciation by Royal Cortissoz (New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1926), 1:115–17, 3:23.
Gilbert Stuart Memorial Exhibition, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1928), unpaginated.
Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928), 1:395.
Howard A. Kelly and Walter L. Burrage, Dictionary of American Medical Biography: Lives of Eminent Physicians of the United States and Canada, from the Earliest Times (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1928), 41.
Historical Records Survey, Mass., American Portraits, 1620–1825, Found in Massachusetts; Prepared by the Historical Records Survey, Division of Professional and Service Projects, Works Progress Administration (Boston: Historical Records Survey, 1939), 1:17.
Charles Merrill Mount, Gilbert Stuart: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1964), 364.
Clifford K. Shipton, Biographical Sketches of Those Who Attended Harvard College in the Classes 1764–1767 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1972), 16:12, (repro.).
Donald Hoffmann, “Gallery Receives Revolutionary Gift: Stuart Portrait Captures Vitality of Early Doctor,” Kansas City Star, December 27, 1981, 3F.
Shepherd Brooks and Jay Gates, “An American Portrait: Dr. William Aspinwall by Gilbert Stuart,” Bulletin (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) 5 (July 1983), 2–5, 14, 17n13, cover.
A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987. exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 166–67, 262.
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 6, 28–29.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 232.
