Portrait of Jean Terford David

Artist
Thomas Sully
Year
1813
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Unframed: 89.5 × 70.5 cm (35 1/4 × 27 3/4 in.)

A young woman in a high-waisted white gown and blue shawl gazes past the viewer with a quiet, confident expression. Thomas Sully — the leading American portraitist of the Federal era, celebrated for his fluid, idealising style — paints Jean Terford David with the warm, soft-lit elegance that made him the favoured painter of the young republic.