John Jay

Download free · 2318 × 3000px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Gilbert Stuart (American, 1755–1828)
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: overall: 131 x 102 cm (51 9/16 x 40 3/16 in.); framed: 164.5 x 135.9 x 11.1 cm (64 3/4 x 53 1/2 x 4 3/8 in.)
Museum: National Gallery of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Shown from the knees up, a balding, pale-skinned man wearing a voluminous rust-red and black robe sits angled to our right in this vertical portrait painting. The man is clean-shaven, and tufts of ash-brown hair curls around his ears. He looks to our right with gray eyes under slender brows. The tip of his long nose comes to a prominent point, and his wide, thin, pale pink lips are closed. A white, ruffled ascot is tucked into the lapels of a red and black robe edged with silvery white.

The fabric has a sheen, suggesting satin or silk. The man’s legs are crossed and covered with inky-black fabric. The man’s right hand, to our left, rests in his lap, and the other rests on the edge of a book propped upright on a table covered in a dusky, dark pink cloth. A muted copper-red curtain hangs to the left, and a column and its base is outlined against the parchment-brown wall behind him. The portrait is loosely painted with some visible strokes, especially in the costume and background.