Lot 407: Attributed to Sarah Miriam Peale (American,

Attributed to Sarah Miriam Peale (American, 1800-1885), "Portrait of a Young Man in a Gray Vest", oil on canvas, unsigned, 30 in. x 25 in., in a richly carved period giltwood frame. Provenance: Private Collector, Baltimore. Note: The youngest daughter of James Peale, Sarah Miriam Peale was taught to paint by her father and her uncle, Charles Willson Peale, from an early age. She and her sister, Anna, often traveled together from Philadelphia to Baltimore and painted portraits of families and of public figures. It is feasible, therefore, that the two sisters may have had some of the same sitters in their portraits; the young man in the picture illustrated here bears a striking resemblance to the young man in the painting Four Children by Anna Claypoole Peale, listed and illustrated in the Smithsonian Art Inventories Catalog. Both the ruddiness of the cheeks and the treatment of the background in Portrait of a Young Man in a Gray Vest are reminiscent of Sarah's painting techniques in multiple examples of her portraiture. Both sisters were known to have painted the Jessop Family of Baltimore - through Sarah's well known Portrait of Charles Lavallen Jessop (Boy on a Rocking Horse), c. 1840, now in a private collection, and Anna's miniature watercolor on ivory, Mary Gorsuch Jessop with Charles Jessop on Reverse, n.d., also in a private collection. The resemblance of Charles Lavallen Jessop's features to both the young man in Four Children and in the painting illustrated here; the fact that Charles had three younger sisters (who could be the other three children in Four Children); and the fact that the Jessop family resided in Baltimore, indicate that this portrait of a young man in a gray vest may, in fact, be a portrait of Charles Lavallen Jessop. References: Miller, Lillian B. The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy 1770-1870. Abbeville Press, New York, 1996. Holland, Eugenia Calvert, et al. Four Generations of Commissions of the Peale Collection of the Maryland Historical Society. Press of Schneidereith & Sons, Baltimore, Maryland, 1975.