Lot 356: JOHN WOLLASTON (1706-1805)

JOHN WOLLASTON (1706-1805) MRS. PONTIUS STELLE oil on canvas 29 ¼ in. by 24 in. painted circa 1752, in New York City

Descended in the Stelle family;
Eunice Chambers, Hartsville, South Carolina, 1968

John Wollaston (active between 1742 and 1775) was an English painter of portraits who was active in the British colonies in North America for much of his career. He was one of a handful of painters to introduce the English Rococo style to the American colonies. Wollaston crossed the Atlantic in 1749, settling for a time in New York; there he introduced the latest and most fashionable of London styles in portraiture to American patrons. In 1752 he journeyed south, spending a short time in Philadelphia before arriving in Annapolis by the spring of 1753. During the following year or so he completed some sixty portraits of Marylanders. He next moved to Virginia, producing a comparable amount of portraits of locals between 1755 and 1757. Throughout he continued using the compositions and portrait types he had learned in London; although somewhat outmoded by this time, they remained impressive. By the fall of 1758, Wollaston was back in Philadelphia; he was last recorded there in May 1759. Wollaston travelled more widely in the American colonies than any other painter, and served to satisfy a growing demand for formal portraiture for merchants and landowners. Wollaston's influence on younger artists was felt primarily in Philadelphia; there, painters such as Robert Feke, John Hesselius, and Benjamin West imitated his technique and compositions in their own output. It also seems likely that Jeremiah Theus became acquainted with Wollaston's work during the latter's time in Charleston, and adapted some of the older artist's techniques in his own later paintings. Today, Wollaston's portraits can be found in many museum collections; among these are those of the National Gallery of Art; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William and Mary; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Bayou Bend Collections, Yale University Art Museum; The New York Historical Society, and the National Portrait Gallery.

Mrs. Pontius Stelle (Rachel Barnes) was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Barnes. She was born February 2, 1717, in New York City. First, she married a Mr. Hooten, and, after his death she married Mr. Pontius Stelle.

Mr. Pontius Stelle was the son of Gabriel and Elizabeth Wooley Stelle. He was born in 1707 and died in 1776. He was a Vestryman in Christ Church in Shrewsbury, N.Y. Later, he moved to Trenton, New Jersey and in 1748 he was a memeber of the Assembly of Judges of the Court of Common Pleas. He was vestryman of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Trenton, 1764-1765. A New Jersey history gives this information: he was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of all the Frontier Forces against the French and Indians in 1748. Mr Stelle was a prominent merchant in Trenton, N.J.

The Frick Art Reference Library records the following comments on the Stelle-Wollaston Portraits by Mr. Mantle Fielding, Mr. John Hill Morgan and Mr. Bolton: "Undoubtedly the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Stelle were painted by John Wollaston during his best period of work which was in New York in 1752". One of them spoke of the painting of the lace as very fine, and, typical of the few fine portraits painted by Wollaston. .