Description:

Matthew Harris Jouett
American/Kentucky, 1788-1827
Dr. Walter Brashear (1776-1860)
oil on canvas
c. 1822, unsigned, inscribed "Dr. Brashear by Matthew Jouett" on stretcher, 25 1/2 in. x 21 1/2 in., framed, overall 32 in. x 28 in. x 2 1/4 in.

Provenance: Frances Brashear Lawrence (c. 1820-1895), daughter of the sitter, Morgan City, LA and Tom's River, NJ; likely by descent to her son, Robert Brashear Lawrence (1847-1929); to his grandson, R.E. Lawrence (1926-2009); Private Collection, PA.

  • Provenance: Neal Auction would like to thank Mr. Estill Curtis Pennington for his expert assistance with this lot. The following catalogue note is an excerpt from his extensive research regarding the portrait and sitter and his monograph on the artist, Matthew Harris Jouett (1788-1827): His Life and Work, published in 2020.
    Note: Recorded by Jouett Menefee in "Catalog of Jouett Paintings" in General Samuel Wood Price's The Old Masters of the Bluegrass of 1902, this portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett, widely considered the greatest portrait painter from Kentucky, was once part of a pair depicting Dr. and Mrs. Walter Brashear, with only the doctor's portrait now surviving and offered here. Walter Brashear was born in Prince George's County, Maryland, to Ignatius Brashear (1734-1807) and Francis Catteral (1736-1804). The Brashears were French in origin, the name meaning Brewer, and were in Calvert, Maryland by 1658 when Benois Brasseur acquired some 1,150 acres from Richard Bennett and began building a home known as upper Bennett. Accounts conflict as to whether they were Catholic or Huguenot, although Maryland was a Catholic stronghold.
    Ignatius Brashear emigrated to Kentucky in 1784, taking possession of land near Shepherdsville, near Louisville. After some preparatory study he began his training as a medical professional under Dr. Frederick Ridgely at Transylvania University in Lexington. Walter Brashear was an ambitious entrepreneur who tacked his way between the medical field and a career as a merchant. After a trip to China in 1799, he returned to Kentucky and a medical practice. He secured his first claim to fame by an amputation at the hip joint on a seventeen-year-old slave boy. Seeking a wider range for his practice he moved his family to Lexington in 1813 and soon became a highly regarded local physician. He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Transylvania in 1822
    That same year he moved his family to St. Mary's Parish, where he set himself up as a grand planter at Belle Isle. He also began to dabble in politics, was elected United States Senator for Louisiana, and in 1847 was a co-sponsor of a bill to move the capital from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. In loyalty to Kentucky and to his hero Henry Clay he was a member of the Whig Party. His political activity must have been distracting from his life as a planter, for by 1849 advertisements began appearing for sales of his property to meet various debts. It does not seem to have been a problem for him for at the same time he was serving as head of the Whig Party and presided at their annual convention in 1852. At his death there was but brief mention of his passing in the press, while several advertisements also appeared advising those with claims against his estate on how to proceed.
    From an art historical perspective, the Brashear portrait is a highly unusual example of the artist's work. It is the only portrait found to date in which the sitter wears glasses. The portrait does manifest several of the lessons Jouett learned from [Gilbert] Stuart and practiced diligently throughout his career. It is certainly plumb, centered in the planar field with proportionate space above the head. Most importantly, as regards gaze and composition Jouett has surely "carefully observed and distinctly managed" the character of the sitter. Jouett gave his male sitters a gaze which came from his acute observation. His first portrait of Henry Clay, painted soon after his return to Lexington captures in a very subtle way Clay's cunning, his smile just short of a smirk and his gaze bold and penetrating. His portrait of Dr. Robert Dudley, Brashear's contemporary at Transylvania, looks out with the same kindly gaze he extended to his students while founding the medical school at Transylvania. Jouett certainly got away with a rather harsh, but probably accurate depiction of Edmund Haynes Taylor, the very handsome, and clearly arrogant founder of old Taylor Bourbon.
    But it is Jouett's two portraits of Dr. Horace Holley, President of Transylvania, to which we should look for suitable comparisons, to the Brashear portrait. Jouett painted two portraits of Holley. The first is a hesitant state portrait in which the sitter is invested with the trappings of authority, even as he seems to gaze off in a distracted manner while crumpling a piece of paper on which nothing is written. In the second, he is a solitary figure, who gazes intensely beyond the boundaries of the planar field, though little in his presence suggests he has seen something he is about to disclose. Though Jouett admired Holley, his portraits suggest he is portraying a man whose outward success as an orator masks an unresolved identity as a leader. He is neither engaged with his viewers nor inviting them to see him, remaining an isolated, polarizing figure, whose portraits advise viewers to draw their own conclusions from a safe distance.
    Both portraits provide an insight into the character of Brashear, which Jouett captured in such a subtle way. Like Holley, Brashear was a very talented and driven man, a man who was not adverse to taking risks, be it in the operation room, on the plantation, or in the state house. But also, like Holley, he seems uncertain as to his pathway. He moved between his life as a highly accomplished, and admired, surgeon, to the life of a planter. At the same time, he pursued political office…as an ascertation of his leadership abilities or to consolidate his position in the planter hierarchy?
    If the dating of the portrait is correct, Jouett painted him at a time in his life in which he was making choices, decisions that would radically change his identity. But the pursed lips and stiff posture, combined with a certain wariness in his eyes suggest a man who may think he knows where he is going, while unaware of what he may find there. It is certainly one of Jouett's most perceptive and masterful works. This is not merely a portrait but a biographical account.
    Ref.: Collection of the Brashear and Lawrence Family Papers, 1802-1897; Dr. John Ouchterlony. "Dr. Walter Brashear." Pioneer Medical Men. Louisville: 1890, pp. 36-42.
  • Dimensions: 25 1/2 in. x 21 1/2 in.
  • Medium: oil on canvas
  • Condition: Relined; recently conserved; scattered areas of inpainting, particularly on and around face, in white area, along all 4 edges and at mended tear to left of head; faint craquelure throughout; frame has separation at 3 of 4 corners, plus scattered marks, nicks and abrasions.

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