Thomas Sully

Thomas Sully 1783-1872, American painter, b. England. Having come to the United States as a child, he first studied with his brother Lawrence, a miniaturist, and later for a brief time with Gilbert Stuart. During a year (1809-10) in England he came under the influence of Benjamin West and Sir Thomas Lawrence. In 1810 he settled in Philadelphia, where he quickly became the leading portrait painter. On a second trip to England he was commissioned to paint the young Queen Victoria. Known chiefly as a portraitist, Sully also painted noteworthy historical compositions, such as Washington's Passage of the Delaware (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston). His elegant and romantic portraits are to be found in many collections. Typical of his works are Mother and Son and a sketch of Queen Victoria (both: Metropolitan Mus.) and portraits of Fanny Kemble (Pa. Acad. of the Fine Arts), Andrew Jackson (National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.), and Presidents Jefferson and Monroe (U.S. Military Acad., West Point, N.Y.). He wrote a treatise on painting, Hints to Young Portrait Painters (1873, repr. 1965).

Bibliography: See studies by C. H. Hart (1909) and T. Biddle and M. Fielding (1921).

Sully, Thomas (1783–1872). The pre-eminent American portrait painter of his period, active mainly in Philadelphia. He was born in England, but moved to America as a child. Subsequently he made two visits to England—in 1809–10, when he received advice from West, and in 1837–8, to paint Queen Victoria for the Society of the Sons of St George of Philadelphia (a preliminary version is in the Wallace Coll., London). His style, distinguished by fluid, glossy brushwork and romantic warmth and dash, reveals his great admiration for Lawrence. In his later work, however, he tended towards a genteel sentimentality. Sully was highly successful and extremely productive. He is said to have painted some 2,000 portraits (he also made miniatures), but his best-known work is probably one of his (also very numerous) history paintings—Washington Crossing the Delaware (1819, MFA, Boston).

Sully, Thomas (b Horncastle, Lincolnshire, 19 June 1783; d Philadelphia, 5 Nov. 1872). The pre-eminent American portrait painter of his period, active mainly in Philadelphia. He was born in England, but moved to America as a child. Subsequently he made two visits to England—in 1809–10, when he received advice from West, and in 1837–8, when he painted Queen Victoria for the Society of the Sons of St George of Philadelphia (another version is in the Wallace Coll., London). His style, distinguished by fluid, glossy brushwork and romantic warmth and dash, reveals his great admiration for Lawrence. In his later work, however, he tended towards a genteel sentimentality. Sully was highly successful and extremely productive. He is said to have painted some 2,000 portraits (he also made miniatures), but his best-known work is probably one of his (also very numerous) history paintings—Washington Crossing the Delaware (1819, MFA, Boston).