Martha Parke Custis

Status

Not on view

Datec. 1772

Subject Martha Parke Custis (American, 1756 - 1773)

Attribution Charles Willson Peale (American, 1741 - 1827)

Medium/TechniqueWatercolor on ivory, hair, copper alloy

DimensionsOverall: 1 1/2 in. x 7/8 in. x 5/8 in. (3.81 cm x 2.22 cm x 1.59 cm)

Credit LineGift of Katherine Merle-Smith Thomas, 2010

Object numberW-4905

DescriptionThis bust-length oval miniature, painted in polychrome watercolors, depicts Martha (Patsy) Parke Custis at about the age of sixteen. The subject wears a pale pink dress with a deeply scooped neckline trimmed in scalloped white lace. Her dark brown hair is shown swept up and with long curling locks cascading down and around her neck at (proper) left, with a tendril loose over her (proper) right ear. Patsy’s shoulders are turned slightly to the (proper) right, while her head is turned in the opposite direction. Her brown eyes gaze beyond the frame, and she has a pleasant expression with a trace of a smile. There is a mark of brown just below the subject’s nose at (proper) right. The miniature is lit from the (proper) right, and its shaded background is lightest around the subject's face at (proper) left. A vivid blue tint is evident particularly around the lips, chin, and along the jaw line, especially at (proper) left, and above and below the (proper) right eye. This color, which heightens the pallor of the figure, also appears just above the hair and extends to the whole of the background at (proper) left, where it may be intended to represent blue sky.

A thin and very simple gold frame surrounds the miniature.

Encased on the verso is a plait of hair woven into four squares of a checkerboard pattern.
Given its unusually narrow shape, the miniature has been presumed to have been cut down from its original size.

Published ReferencesCharles Coleman Sellers, Art of Charles Willson Peale (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia: 1969), 58-59.

“George Washington Relics,” Baltimore Sun, February 16, 1958, 5 .

Charles Coleman Sellers, Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia: 1952), 59-61.

Edmund Law Rogers, "Some New Washington Relics, from the Collection of Edmund Law Rogers," Century Magazine XL (May 1890): 22-25.

“Relics of George Washington,” Baraboo Republic, Baraboo, Wisconsin, April 28, 1875.

____ “News Items Concerning the Charity Art Exposition,” Baltimore American & Commercial Advertiser, Baltimore, Maryland, January 29, 1874. ____ [4, column 6].

General references related to Peale's portraits of Martha Parke Custis:

Stephen Decatur, Jr., The Private Affairs of George Washington (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1933), 240.

Charles Moore, The Family Life of George Washington (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926), 55.

Benson Lossing, Mary and Martha, The Mother and Wife of George Washington (New York: 1886), 123.

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