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Captain John Gell

1785
Not on view
In 1785 the British naval officer John Gell (1738–1806) had just completed his duty on the seventy-gun Monarca, which he had commanded in a series of battles against the French. For this portrait, Stuart used as a model Sir Joshua Reynolds’s heroic "Commodore Augustus Keppel" (1752; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK). In homage to Reynolds, Stuart employed a combination of fine and slapdash brushwork, conveying an image of both heroism and naturalism. He exhibited "Captain John Gell" at London’s Royal Academy of Arts in 1785, when the British portraitist John Hoppner commented that it was “admirably well-painted without trickery to dazzle the eye or mislead the judgment.”

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Captain John Gell
  • Artist: Gilbert Stuart (American, North Kingston, Rhode Island 1755–1828 Boston, Massachusetts)
  • Date: 1785
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 94 1/2 x 58 1/2 in. (240 x 148.6 cm)
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Dorothy Schwartz Gift, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and 2000 Benefit Fund, 2000
  • Object Number: 2000.450
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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