Thomas Sully
Stephen Decatur
1813
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Thomas Sully
Stephen Decatur
1813
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, Framed: 39 3/8 x 30 x 4 3/8 in. (100 x 76.2 x 11.1 cm) Sight: 32 1/4 x 23 in. (81.9 x 58.4 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of John D. Schapiro
Object Number
1976.83
The son of a Revolutionary privateer, Stephen Decatur (1779-1820) was a Maryland native who distinguished himself in the New Republic's fledgling Navy, having joined as a fifteen-year-old in 1798. Decatur stands in full dress uniform at the southern tip of Manhattan. Across the water, wreathed in smoke from firing artillery, we see Castle William, a defense constructed on Governor's Island during the War of 1812. Eventually, Decatur's sorties against the pirates of the North African Barbary States assured the safety of American ships in the Mediterranean sea. The feisty commodore was killed in a duel in 1820. A larger version of this portrait, commissioned by the city fathers of New York, hangs in New York City Hall.
George North Tatham, Philadelphia; to his nephew, Edwin Tatham; to his widow, Sara Potter Tatham; to her brother-in-law, Charles Tatham; C. W. Lyon, Inc., New York, 1940; Mr. and Mrs. Norvin H. Green; Green Sale, New York, 1950; Morris Schapiro, Baltimore; to his son, John Schapiro, Baltimore
AMW Reinstallation 2014
American Wing Rotations 2020
American Wing Rotations 2021
Wendy A. Cooper. Classical Taste in America 1800-1840. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art; New York: Abbeville Press, 1993, page 243.
Charles Henry Hart, ed., A Register of Portraits Painted by Thomas Sully, 1801-1871, Philadelphia, 1909, p. 54, no. 429; Edward Biddle and Mantle Fielding, The Life and Works of Thomas Sully (1783-1872), Philadelphia: Wickersham Press, 1921, p. 137, no. 452; The Notable American Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Norvin H. Green (sale cat.), Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, Nov. 29-Dec. 2, 1950, pp. 172-173, no. 596, ill.
