A bust-length portrait of President Thomas Jefferson facing half left, by the American artist Bass Otis [1784-1861]. Otis was commissioned to paint President Jefferson’s portrait by Joseph Delaplaine, a Philadelphia publisher, for his ‘Repository of the Lives and Portraits of Distinguished American Characters’, 1817. According to Gainor Davis’ text in the Delaware catalogue:

‘In a letter dated May 11 1816, Delaplaine informed Jefferson that he had ‘engaged one of our best portrait painters, Mr. Otis of this city’ to paint the aging ex president. Otis, with Delaplaine in tow, arrived at Monticello on June 3 1816, despite several attempts on Jefferson’s part to dissuade them … Dr. Casper Wister supplied Otis with a letter of introduction in which he called Otis an artist of ‘rising character’ who was noted for his ‘ingenuity as well as his obliging disposition’… Working from his original portrait, which he did not give to Delaplaine, Otis produced at least seven paintings of Jefferson, of varying artistic merit”.

Of the five portraits reproduced in the Delaware catalogue, only the present example bears a signature. The portrait (reproduced on p.44) now the property of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Monticello, is thought to be the original life portrait, according to the catalogue’s text. This portrait has a label on the back: “B. Otis/Portrait Painter/68 Cherry St/Philadelphia 1816”. A colour reproduction (Delaware p.69) of the Department of State example depicts Jefferson’s eyes as blue, while the eyes in the present work are depicted as hazel — as attested to by Dumas Malone, “His [Jefferson’s] eyes were hazel, though often described in later years as blue”. (Malone, p.48). In Craven’s essay Otis is described as ‘equal to that of any of the nineteenth-century portrait painters who are for varying reasons better known today than he is. The present exhibition, it is hoped, will help restore Bass Otis to the place he deserves in the history of American painting.’

Exhibited twice:
1:- Historical Society of Delaware, October 18 – December 31 1976, (full page b/w illustration in the catalogue, Bass Otis: Painter, Portraitist and Engraver. Introduction by Roland H. Woodward, Essays by Gainor B. Davis and Wayne Craven p. 48.
2:- Yorktown (Virginia) Victory Center, “Patriotic Folk Art; A Loan Exhibition”, November 19 – March 31, 1979-80, (check-list #9).

The Delaware catalogue refers to the proven existence of seven Otis portraits of Thomas Jefferson. The locations of the known examples identified (two remain unlocated):

1. Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Monticello (ex Mrs. E.M. Bolles)
2. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia (ex William J. Campbell)
3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
4. U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C., (sold as lot 52, American Art Association – Anderson Galleries sale number 4076. “American Historical Portraits the property of the late Hiriam Burlington”, January 11, 1934. Sold to David K. E. Bruce, Staunton Hill, VA)
5. Clive A. Burden Ltd. (ex Collection of Mr. & Mrs. J. Garrison Stradling, N.Y.)

Provenance: Collection of Mr. & Mrs. J. garrison Stradling, N. Y. References: Historical Society of Delaware, October 18 – December 31 1976, Bass Otis: Painter, Portraitist and Engraver. Introduction by Roland H. Woodward, Essays by Gainor B. Davis and Wayne Craven; Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, Boston, 1948; Yorktown (Virginia) Victory Center, “Patriotic Folk Art; A Loan Exhibition”, November 19 – March 31, 1979-80, (check-list #9).