Catalogue Entry
It is not known why Johnson copied portraits by Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, the early American masters whose style of painting (layers of paint and glazing) were so different from his own. Also unknown are the circumstances relevant to his painting a copy of a portrait of William Backhouse Astor that had been completed by his colleague George Augustus Baker, Jr., after a photograph by Mathew Brady. —PH
MacGibeny, 2021: The 1792 full-length portrait of Hamilton by Trumbull on which this copy is based is now jointly owned by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Marianne Richter and Wendy Greenhouse, Union League Club of Chicago Art Collection, 2001: "Johnson painted his portrait of Alexander Hamilton during a period in which he was painting several portraits for the New York Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber already owned a 1792 life portrait of Hamilton by the American painter John Trumbull, from which Johnson copied his image. Trumbull's original, portraying Hamilton as the United States's first secretary of the treasury, is an elaborate, formal full-length portrait, with a grand, imaginary architectural setting, but Johnson adapted the portrait to a bust likeness as Trumbull himself had in several replicas. Here Hamilton, wearing a light gray coat, is framed against a plain, dark background. His head and gaze are turned slightly toward his right, and a faint smile imparts an air of confidence to the subject."
Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757–1804). Soldier, lawyer, scholar, and Founding Father of the United States, with notable roles as aide-de-camp to General George Washington during the Revolutionary War, co-author of the Federalist papers (which helped ensure ratification of the Constitution), and first Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, 1789–1795. Married Elizabeth Schuyler (m. 1780). Killed in a duel with political rival Aaron Burr.
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