Gilbert StuartAmerican, 1755–1828John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)” now? Collection: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Cambridge, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
This large, full-length portrait of the sixth president of the United States is the joint work of two major American artists. Gilbert Stuart painted Adams’s face, but died before he could complete the body. After his death, a group of prominent Bostonians prevailed on Thomas Sully, a young Philadelphia painter, to finish the picture. Sully traveled to Boston for this purpose in the summer of 1829. With the exception of Adams’s face, the entire portrait is the work of Sully.
Read on
The portrait was commissioned by Adams’s cousin, Ward Nicholas Boylston. A graduate and a supporter of Harvard, Boylston planned to bequeath the work to his alma mater, together with John Singleton Copley’s portrait of Adams’s father (John Adams, 1783). At Boylston’s request, Sully designed the portrait as a pendant to Copley’s, which is exhibited here to the right. The works have the same scale, share a composition and neoclassical style, and have similar background landscapes. They have been displayed together at locations across the Harvard campus since they arrived in 1828.
Harvard Art Museums
Details
- Accession number
- H187
In the catalog
Sources
- Harvard Art Museums
- Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
In the life of Gilbert Stuart
The whole life1805–1828
Fellow artists seek his advice in Boston
In Boston he exhibited at Doggett’s Repository and Julien Hall, and other American artists sought his advice — John Trumbull, Thomas Sully, Washington Allston and John Vanderlyn.
1824
Stroke: partial paralysis
A stroke left Stuart partially paralyzed, but he went on painting in the last two years of his life.
9 July 1828
Died
