Name/Title
Joanna Livingston Van CortlandtEntry/Object ID
VC.58.3 a-bDescription
Painted here in profile, Joanna Livingston Van Cortlandt (1722-1808) bears a stoic countenance that may reflect both her personality and the way she supervised the African men, women, and children whom she and her family enslaved. During the American Revolution, Joanna and her husband Pierre fled their manor house in Croton-on-Hudson, leaving some of the enslaved community to continue operating the estate. Without their stewardship during a time of tremendous instability and peril, Joanna could not have spent the remaining decades of her life helping to rebuild the family's properties and businesses after surviving the War.
a. Painting: Three-quarter profile portrait of middle-aged woman facing the viewer's right: gaze directly forward, narrow lips are tightly closed, eyes blue, three moles visible on face, upon close examination, brown hair covered by thin shirred cap, trimmed with heavy black band around crown; white cap ties under chin; black shawl worn over long-sleeved black dress; small white line of collar around neck; background solid brown with tinge of olive-green. Unsigned. Reverse: "Description of Citizen Genet sketch from photograph (original now hidden by lining)"; charcoal or crayon three-quarter bust portrait, facing slightly to subject's right, and looking out at viewer; hair wavy; lapels of collar protrude above neck scarf from which an ornament hangs; V-neck coat with heavy collars.
b. Frame: Vertical rectangle of moldings - plain and narrow cyma-recta outer molding; wide, flat area splaying inward to inner cyma-reversa molding. The front is gilded. The sides are painted yellow.Artwork Details
Medium
Oil on Canvas, wood (unknown), Gesso, Gilding, Oil on canvas, wood (unknown), gesso, gildingSubject Person or Organization
Joanna Livingston Van Cortlandt, Edmond-Charles-Edou. GenetCollection
Van Cortlandt Manor Object CollectionMade/Created
Artist Information
Artist
Ezra AmesAttribution
ArtistNotes
Dates: c. 1812Dimensions
Dimension Description
w. frameHeight
30 inWidth
25-1/4 inDimension Notes
Display Dimensions: 30 x 25 1/4 in. (76.2 x 64.1 cm)Condition
Notes
Remarks: There is an area of local lifting in the sitter's face. There is also a matt area to left of the sitter's head. The lifting will be consolidated with sturgeon glue and the matt area will be resaturated with MS2A. There is also local lifting and losses in the frame which will be consolidated with sturgeon glue and retouched with watercolor. (Condition analysis and treatment proposal: Shawn Digney-Peer)Notes
Overall Analysis: August 1956- Sheldon Keck's report of his restoration: "The painting had a strange strip running down the side which had eaten into the surface all the way down to the fabric, someone had tried to clean the face, there were flyspecks and some few holes. The painting was placed in the Dutch method, reverse cleaned, coated with wax resin, lined on natural linen and restretched on a new stretcher. It cleaned nicely but the flyspecks had to be removed under magnificartion. The voids were filled and inpainted and the painting surface with the polybutyl methacrylate, Iso-N. The edges were stripped and the reverse backed with cardboard. Please keep the metal straps if this is
reframed."
Restoration: $200
Frame: $40
There is extensive cleavage along the left side of the painting, and at the top edge, with some flake losses. The cause of this cleavage is not clear, but it appears to be connected with the staining and discoloration mentioned by Mr. Keck.
Treatment:
The painting was faced with wet-strength paper and starch paste. It was removed from the stretcher, a thin layer of multiwax 445 was brushed on the reverse, and the painting was infused on the vacuum hot table, under pressure. (Some small areas of flaking had been set down locally with polyvinyl acetate resin AYAA in methanol, before infusion.) The facing and excess wax were removed with water and petroleum benzine. The existing varnish and most inpainting were removed with toluene. The painting was restretched on a new expansion-bolt stretcher. Losses were filled with gesso and inpainted with dry pigments in polyvinyl acetate resin AYAC. A first varnish layer of Acryloid B-67 was sprayed before inpainting. After inpainting, a final varnish layer of Acryloid B-72 was sprayed.
The edges were fitted with polyethulene lip-over stripping, the painting was backed with Fome-cor and secured in the existing frame with brass straps.
May 2000 the painting was taken to Paul Himmelstein in NYC for conservation. Paint was flaking off the canvas around her face.
Returned 08/10/2000. See object file folder for treatment report.
Remarks: Details of condition: A note from the Van Cortlandt Work Sheet: The surface of gilt is slightly worn and cracked, gesso and gilt chipping in a few places, especially at lower edge.Relationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
Joanna Livingston Van CortlandtNotes
SubjectPerson or Organization
Maj-Gen Pierre Van Cortlandt IINotes
Former ownerPerson or Organization
Mrs. William V. Mason Jr.Notes
Former ownerPerson or Organization
Miss Catherine Van Cortlandt MathewsNotes
Former ownerPerson or Organization
Miss Anne Stevenson Van CortlandtNotes
Former ownerPerson or Organization
Edmond-Charles-Edou. GenetNotes
SubjectPerson or Organization
Van Cortlandt FamilyNotes
Former ownerGeneral Notes
Note Type
Curatorial RemarksNote
Miscellaneous:
Bolton and Cortelyou think that portrait was probably painted posthumously, from a wax miniature profile of the sitter (by an unknown artist), at the Museum of the City of New York, p. 296.
Apparently the sketch of Citizen Genet, was not discovered until after Bolton and Cortelyou published their book. They illustrate and note a finished portrait of Genet, no.127. Edmund Charles Genet, first minister to the United States from the French Republic, married Cornelia Clinton, sister of Catherine Clinton Taylor Van Cortlandt, first wife of Pierre Van Cortlandt II.Note Type
General NoteNote
Van Cortlandt family possessionNote Type
StorageNoteNote
Home Location: Historic Hudson Valley, Van Cortlandt Manor, Hall