Charles Willson Peale
Major John Swan
1787
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, Sight: 35 1/2 × 26 1/2 in. (90.2 × 67.3 cm.)
Framed: 43 1/2 × 34 1/2 × 4 1/8 in. (110.5 × 87.6 × 10.5 cm.)
Credit Line
The Mary Frick Jacobs Collection
Object Number
1938.241
Portrait of Major John Swan by Charles Wilson Peale, 1788. Oil on canvas. Peale has depicted Swan as a somewhat portly, ruddy-faced gentleman, wearing a light-colored waistcoat with a double row of buttons and a deep blue coat; his trousers are dark gray, and he is seated in a mahogany chair at a table covered with a green cloth, on which there is an inkstand resting on a stack of papers. In his left hand, he holds an open letter. Peale's difficulties with foreshortening, mentioned above, are evident in the somewhat awkward position of the subject's right arm.
Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1938; Mary Frick Jacobs (1851-1905), Baltimore, MD by purchase, 1885; Mrs. Robert Swan by descent; Major John Swan, Annapolis, MD.
The Peabody Galleries, Baltimore, Loan Exhibition Inaugurated by The Friends of Art, Jan. 4-24, 1922, n.p., no. 80 (lent by Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs).
PAFA, Philadelphia, "Exhibition of Portraits by Charles Willson Peale and James Peale and Rembrandt Peale," Apr. 11-May 9, 1923, p. 68, no. 65.
BMA, "A Century of Baltimore Collecting, 1840-1940," June 6-Sept. 1, 1941, p. 66.
Cincinnati Art Museum, "Paintings by the Peale Family," Oct. 1-31, 1954, p. 17, no. 38.
PAFA, Philadelphia, "Exhibition of Portraits by Charles Willson Peale and James Peale and Rembrandt Peale," Apr. 11-May 9, 1923, p. 68, no. 65.
BMA, "A Century of Baltimore Collecting, 1840-1940," June 6-Sept. 1, 1941, p. 66.
Cincinnati Art Museum, "Paintings by the Peale Family," Oct. 1-31, 1954, p. 17, no. 38.
Sona K. Johnston, "American Painting 1750-1900 from the Collection of The Baltimore Museum of Art," 1983, pp. 114-115, ill. p. 115.
On View: American Wing Second Floor, Scott 08
