Mrs. Hamilton

Thanks to notifications I set up last year I was reminded that today is the anniversary of the date that Washington sent John a letter inviting him to become part of his family. He wasn’t able to offer him an official post as aide de camp at the time, but he would as soon as he was able.

I was looking into which Hamilton’s portraits are the closest to what he actually looked like. A lot of them were painted after his death, or even during his life were actually copies from other potraits, and even the copies made by the same artist from their own work look different. I couldn’t find any good listing, and information on art pages is lacking. In my search, I came across this article: 

The Life Portraits of Alexander Hamilton Harry MacNeill Bland and Virginia W. Northcott The William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 12, No. 2, Alexander Hamilton: 1755-1804 (Apr., 1955), pp. 187-198 Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture

It’s from the 1955, so definitely outdated, but it’s the closest I could find to a comprehensive list, so here we go. It lists 16 portraits, but I will shorten the list because some of them were made by memory, or look like the artist has some problems with perspective and coonstruction of volume (it happens a lot with older painters).  

The earliest portraits it lists are by Charles Willson Peale, 1777:

This one was long considered to be of Washington, and I can see why; to me, it actually looks more like Laurens by the same painter.

This portrait by Peale was lost at the time the article was published, but we all know it now - the one Eliza embroidered so beautifully. There are also some later portraits by Peale, but I don’t find them very life-like, style-wise. (Not that these two look very much like other Hams portraits, either, but we don’t have anything else from that period.)

The first of the big Trumbull portraits (1792) is actually based on the bust portrait painted by Trumbull for John Jay, apparently this one:

The full-length portrait is a copy of this bust with the body added to it, not from life but probably from someone else modelling. (So, not Ham’s pretty legs, pity.) 

Then we have the Ceracchi bust. The terracotta model for it was produced about the same time, from life, but it is somewhat difficult to reconcile the painting and the sculpture. Of course, Ceracchi worked in the Roman tradition and probably embellished the likeness towards the more heroic and cesarian looks. On the other hand, the later portraits cited as having great likeness also show sharp and strong lines similar to this one. 

The article cites Allan McLane Hamilton as saying that the Sharples miniatures had the best likeness. The miniature was stolen by Talleyrand for his fanboying, and then after Hamilton’s death, an oil copy was ordered and sent back to Eliza because the pastels wouldn’t survive the travel. (There’s actually a bunch of copies made by the artists themselves, which one was the first is unclear.)

This portrait by Weaver shows Hamilton in his General’s uniform for the Quasi-War, also considered having great likeness:

 Finally, this potrait by Ezra Emes, painted in 1802 (after Philip’s death), Eliza called “a perfect and excellent likenes”.