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Portraits of Andrew Jackson

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Andrew Jackson, charcoal on paper by Thomas Sully, sketched shortly after the battle of New Orleans (The Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Mrs. Walter O. Briggs, Detroit, Michigan)
$20 Federal Reserve bank note portrait of Andrew Jackson based on Sully's images (Bureau of Printing & Engraving)

This is a list of portraits of Andrew Jackson, who was a controversial president of the United States in the early 19th century. All surviving images of Andrew Jackson were created after the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Born with hair variously described as reddish or sandy, Jackson was 47 years old, middle-aged and with fully "iron-gray" hair, when he came to national renown.[1][2]

Historians believe that Jackson sat for about 35 portraits, and that there are a total of about 200 paintings of Jackson done in oils or watercolor, many created posthumously and/or copied from existing images.[3] His nephew-in-law Ralph Earl was considered the "court painter" of the Andrew Jackson administration, producing "numerous paintings of Jackson, some of distinction, but many repetitious in nature and mediocre in quality, which were political icons rather than art."[4] John James Audubon, who lived in the lower Mississippi River valley in the early 1820s, saw one Earl portrait of Jackson that had been purchased by the city of New Orleans, about which he wrote in his journal, "Great God forgive Me if my judgment is Erroneous, I Never Saw A Worse painted Sign in the streets of Paris."[5] On the other side of the coin, Jacksonians held "the firm opinion that Earl's canvasses reflect the true likeness and character of the General better than his more celebrated contemporaries. After all, they reason, Earl had the advantage of many years of intimate daily association with his subject."[5]

Jackson also sat for photographers in the 1840s, resulting in four surviving daguerreotypes of him in old age, when he was toothless (physically if not behaviorally) and constantly ill. The portrait on the US$20 bill created by the U.S. Treasury department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing in the 1920s is based on Thomas Sully's posthumous paintings of Jackson based on earlier sketches drawn from life, such as the 1845 portrait now housed in the National Gallery of Art.[6] Sully depicted Jackson with somewhat wavy hair, but Jackson's hair was usually described as "stiff and wiry"[7] or "bristling."[2]

Biographer Andrew Burstein divided the portraits of Jackson into three general categories of depiction: gentleman, enigma, and hero, creating a confusion such that "Jackson's elusiveness to the modern mind is well-symbolized" by the variation.[8] Another writer commented: "after viewing this extensive Jacksonian gallery, one is prompted to exclaim: 'Will the real Andrew Jackson please stand up!'"[3]

Color key:    Pre- and post-presidential portraits      Presidential-era portraits  

Paintings

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Image Date Age Artist Institution Technique Notes
1815 48 Nathan Wheeler ? Oil on canvas There are no known images of Andrew Jackson before 1815,[9] this was painted from life in 1815 after the battle of New Orleans[10][11]
1817 50 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl National Portrait Gallery
1817 50 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl
1819 52 Samuel Lovett Waldo Metropolitan Museum of Art Oil on canvas
1819 52 Samuel Lovett Waldo Historic New Orleans Collection Oil on canvas
1819 52 Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Andover Academy Oil on canvas According to biographer Robert V. Remini, Waldo produced one of the "better likenesses" of Jackson[12]
1819 52 Charles Willson Peale The Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania of The Grand Lodge F. & A. M. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Oil on canvas
1819 52 Rembrandt Peale Maryland Historical Society Oil on canvas Commissioned by the city of Baltimore.[13] Historian Andrew Burstein notes that father and son Peale painted their portraits of Jackson within a month of each other "yet the two likenesses suggest dramatically different men."[8]
1819 52 Anna Claypoole Peale Yale University Art Gallery Watercolor on ivory Painted in Washington, D.C. while Jackson was there defending himself in Congress against charges of misconduct in the First Seminole War[14]
1819 52 John Wesley Jarvis Metropolitan Museum of Art Oil on canvas Commissioned by the city of New York;[15] Remini considered this a "romantic portrait"[12]
c. 1822 55 Possibly Matthew Harris Jouett[16] Oil on wood panel
1824 57 Thomas Sully Painted from life, "the original 1824 study was privately owned by Mrs. Breckenridge Long in 1940, but its current location is unknown."[17]
1824 57 Robert Street Sedalia Public Library, Sedalia, Missouri
1828 57 Asher B. Durand New York City Hall Oil[18] "After John Vanderlyn," collection of New-York Historical Society, New York[19]
1828 61 Joseph Wood Original image lost (?)
1830 63 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl DAR Museum[20] Oil on canvas[21] "The Jockey Club Portrait"[20] Jackson is sitting in a chair ordered by James Monroe from Pierre-Antoine Bellange, in the distance is the U.S. Capitol with the "Bullfinch dome," which is distinct from the present dome.[21]
1830 63 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl Private collection[20] "Farmer Jackson" portrait[20]
1828–1833 61–66 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, Nashville "Tennessee gentleman" portrait[20]
1832 65 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl North Carolina Museum of Art
1833 66 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis
1833 66 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, Nashville Andrew Jackson Astride Sam Patch
1832–35 65–68 William James Hubard
1835 68 Samuel M. Charles "Miniature" Andrew Jackson had lost or all of his original teeth by 1828.[22] Per biographer Robert V. Remini, he was "refusing to wear his dentures" when he sat for this portrait.[23]
1835 68 David Rent Etter [d] Second Bank Portrait Gallery, Independence National Park, Philadelphia Depicts Jackson, seated at the White House, pointing a copy of the Proclamation to the People of South Carolina[24]
1835 68 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl
1835 68 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, Nashville
1836 69 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina
1836–37 69–70 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl Smithsonian Museum of American Art "The National Picture," possession transferred to museum from U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia[20]
1837 70 Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl
1840 73 Miner Kilbourne Kellogg
January 1840 73 Jacques Amans
1840 73 Edward Dalton Marchant Union League of Philadelphia (?)[9]
1840 73 James Tooley Jr. "After Marchant"
1840 73 Trevor Thomas Fowler [d] National Portrait Gallery
1842 75 John Wood Dodge Tennessee Historical Museum Commissioned by Gen. Robert Armstrong
1846 George Peter Alexander Healy National Portrait Gallery Painted from life when Jackson was near death, painted a portrait of Sarah Yorke Jackson during the same sittings;[25] three versions exist; "According to Marquis James's biography of Jackson, a dropsical swelling having spread to Jackson's face, only the eyes, the right one blind, the forehead and the hair were painted from life."[4]

Photographs

[edit]
Image Date Age Artist Technique Notes
1840? J. E. Moore of New Orleans was "reported in March of 1842 as practicing the daguerrean art at the rooms of Madame Berniaud at the corner of Baronne and Canal streets. Specimens of the daguerreotype on view at his rooms included a likeness of General Andrew Jackson."[26]
1844–45 77–78 Possibly by Edward Anthony, copy made by Mathew Brady[27] Half-plate gold-tone daguerreotype
1844–45 77–78 Possibly by Edward Anthony, copy made by Mathew Brady Half-plate gold-tone daguerreotype
April 15, 1845 78 Dan Adams, enlarged by Charles Truscott[28] Daguerreotype This version hand-tinted; per Remini this image captures Jackson "bloated, grumpy, formally attired, and propped up against a pillow";[16] possibly apocryphal story about Jackson's comment on the image: "Humph! Looks like a monkey!"[25]

Posthumous

[edit]
Image Date Artist Institution Technique Notes
1845 Thomas Sully National Gallery of Art
1845 Thomas Sully Corcoran Gallery of Art
1857 Thomas Sully United States Senate Collection Oil on canvas mounted on board Based on a study from life done in 1824[17]

Notable engravings and lithographs

[edit]
Image Date Artist Notes
? James Barton Longacre "After Sully"
? James Barton Longacre "After J. Wood"
? James Barton Longacre "After Earl, 1826"
September 28, 1829 James Barton Longacre "Drawn from life"
1845 Currier & Ives Lithograph, posthumous
U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing

Miscellaneous

[edit]
Image Date Artist Notes
? Ralph E. W. Earl (?) After she died, Jackson carried around this miniature of Rachel
1828 William James Hubard Cut-paper silhouette
1856 Charles F. Fisher Jackson in a cloak and a top hat "instead of the cocked hat or chapeau-bras" usually depicted as his headgear at the Battle of New Orleans, said to be "the precise costum [sic] which he wore at the battle of New Orleans;" a similar hat appears in Earl's Tennessee Gentleman portrait and according to biographer Robert V. Remini, "the large beaver hat" was where he kept "notes and memoranda" as he traveled[29]

References

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  1. ^ Cheathem (2013), p. 68.
  2. ^ a b Goff (1969), p. 304.
  3. ^ a b Goff (1969), p. 297.
  4. ^ a b Kelly, James C. (1987). "Catalogue – Portrait Painting in Tennessee – Exhibit". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 46 (4): 208–276 [208, 222]. ISSN 0040-3261. JSTOR 42629707.
  5. ^ a b Goff (1969), p. 298.
  6. ^ "U.S. Senate: [Andrew] Jackson". www.senate.gov. Retrieved 2025-05-10.
  7. ^ Goff (1969), p. 302.
  8. ^ a b Burstein, Andrew (2003). The Passions of Andrew Jackson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 138–139. ISBN 978-0-3754-1428-2. LCCN 2002016258. OCLC 49385944.
  9. ^ a b "Who's Who?". AMERICAN HERITAGE. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  10. ^ "Putting a Face on the Man (1815–1821) | The Historic New Orleans Collection". www.hnoc.org. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  11. ^ "Andrew Jackson". America's Presidents: National Portrait Gallery (in Spanish). Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  12. ^ a b Remini (1977), illustration insert
  13. ^ "Andrew Jackson by Rembrandt Peale (1819)". Baltimore City Life Collection, lent by Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. Maryland Center for History and Culture.
  14. ^ "Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) | Yale University Art Gallery". artgallery.yale.edu. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  15. ^ Jarvis, John Wesley (1819), General Andrew Jackson, retrieved 2024-12-30
  16. ^ a b Remini, Robert Vincent (1984). Andrew Jackson and the course of American democracy, 1833-1845. Internet Archive. New York, N.Y. : Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-015279-6.
  17. ^ a b "Andrew Jackson" (PDF). govinfo.gov.
  18. ^ "Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), (painting)". siris-artinventories.si.edu. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  19. ^ Stephens (2018), p. 188.
  20. ^ a b c d e f Stephens (2018), illustration insert.
  21. ^ a b "Collections Object Detail". Daughters of the American Revolution. Retrieved 2024-12-31.
  22. ^ Gardner, Frances Tomlinson (March 1944). "The Gentleman from Tennessee". Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics. 88: 405–411.
  23. ^ Remini, Robert Vincent (1984). Andrew Jackson and the course of American democracy, 1833-1845. Internet Archive. New York, N.Y. : Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-015279-6.
  24. ^ Gobetz, Wally (2008-06-01), Philadelphia - Old City: Second Bank Portrait Gallery - Andrew Jackson, retrieved 2024-12-31
  25. ^ a b "The Hermitage, home of Old Hickory, by Stanley F. Horn". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2025-01-05.
  26. ^ Smith, Margaret Denton (1979). "Checklist of Photographers Working in New Orleans, 1840–1865". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 20 (4): 393–430. ISSN 0024-6816. JSTOR 4231938.
  27. ^ "Daguerreotypes: Andrew Jackson". WHHA (en-US). Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  28. ^ "Portrait of Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)". Tennesseans Through the Lens: Portrait Photography in Tennessee. 2023-11-21.
  29. ^ Remini, Robert V. (1981). Andrew Jackson and the course of American freedom, 1822–1832. Internet Archive. New York : Harper & Row. Second side of illustration insert following p. 256. ISBN 978-0-06-014844-7.

Sources

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