Thomas Paine (Portrait)
From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Oil on mahogany panel, Miniature
1788
John Trumbull (1756-1843)
10.2 x 8.9 (4 x 3 ½ inches); in frame: 8 ½ x 7 ¼ inches
Description: An oval portrait miniature, painted in oil on a mahogany panel. Thomas Paine is shown bust length, with his head turned three-quarters to the left. He is wearing a dark gray coat with buttons, a beige jacket with buttons and turned-up collar, and a white stock. His hair is graying and shown in an informal style, brushed back off the face. The likeness is set against a gray background.[1]
History: The miniature of Thomas Paine was a present for Thomas Jefferson from John Trumbull who painted it in 1788 while Paine and Trumbull were both in London. Trumbull knew that Jefferson wanted a portrait of “the first public advocate of the American Revolution” for he had asked Trumbull the previous year if he could get Mather Brown, the American painter then in London for whom Jefferson and Adams sat in 1786, to draw his picture. Paine’s popular work, Common Sense, was written for all to understand, and paved the way for the writing of the Declaration of Independence. When Jefferson received the miniature, he wrote Trumbull, “I am to thank you a thousand times for the portrait of Mr. Paine, which is a perfect likeness…”[2]
The portrait of Thomas Paine was at Monticello after Jefferson’s return from France. However, it is uncertain where the painting hung prior to the remodeling of the house (begun 1796). After the completion of the building in 1809, the image of Paine hung in the Parlor, in the lowest tier of pictures in that room. It remained at Monticello until 1828. In that year, it was put up for sale at the Boston Athenaeum. After this there are no records of the miniature’s whereabouts until 1912, when it was unknowingly acquired by a woman in Massachusetts as part of an auction lot. The image of Paine was hidden, face down, in a box that was thought to contain only buttons. It remained in this woman’s possession, known only as “a portrait of an 18th century gentleman,” until the painting was correctly identified in 1955. It was purchased by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1957.[3]
Provenance: Thomas Jefferson; provenance unknown until purchased by Mrs. Arthur M. Greenwood; by purchase to Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1957.
