Self-Portrait

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TitleSelf-Portrait

Artist John La Farge (1835 - 1910)

Date1864

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 30 × 25 in. Framed: 34 1/8 × 29 1/8 × 2 3/8 in.

SubmissionANA diploma presentation, May 11, 1864

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Willard G. Clark, in memory of Henry La Farge, 1987

Object number1987.39

Label TextLa Farge was elected an Associate Academician on May 13, 1863. Academy regulations then gave him one year, or essentially to the next annual meeting, to submit a portrait of himself, or his election would be voided. That next annual meeting convened at 2 pm, May 11, 1864. The Council met at noon of the same day to accept several Associate Elects's portrait presentations, including La Farge's, so those members might take their seats at the afternoon meeting. La Farge's portrait is not again noted in Academy records; and it was not in the collection when it was inventoried in 1910, in preparation for publication of a checklist the following year.

This self-portrait remained among those of La Farge's works not included in the sale of his estate in the spring of 1911. It was probably withheld--as his executrix, Grace Edith Barnes wrote to Robert C. Vose on January 15, 1912, in offering it for sale--because 'It is incomplete and rather unfinished but it is very interesting. He did it when he was about twenty-five or thirty years old.' The Vose Galleries did not purchase the portrait, however, Alden Sampson, of Washington, D. C., apparently did, along with a number of minor works remaining in the estate. Sampson's collection passed to his son, Edward Sampson, of Princeton, New Jersey, in 1925. Edward Sampson's estate, including the La Farge Self-Portrait, was auctioned in 1978. The portrait then changed hands several times, until it was again sold at auction at Christie's, New York, October 24, 1979, at which time it was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Clark.

When the portrait appeared in the market, it attracted the attention of a leading La Farge scholar, James L. Yarnall, who has noted that its 'unusual scale and overall formality of the rendering [were] hard to relate to any other works in La Farge's oeuvre.' However, in communicating with the Academy, and discovering La Farge's diploma portrait was long missing, the explanation for the scale--the Academy's mandatory thirty by twenty-five inches--and formality became clear.

It was not uncommon for members-elect to submit unfinished works as diploma presentations in order to meet deadlines for securing of elections, and then to request the return on loan of their works for purposes of completion. It is possible La Farge reclaimed his unfinished portrait in this way on the very day he presented it. The artist's relationship with the Academy thereafter was not close or notably friendly, and in 1910, at the time of the first thorough collection inventory in over fifty years, La Farge was seriously ill and then died late in the year. Had it occurred to the Academy to press for the return of the portrait, there were good reasons to forego such a request.

On this circumstantial evidence it came to be believed that this unfinished portrait which remained in La Farge's studio at his death is the work accepted by the Academy in May 1864. Mr. and Mrs. Clark's conclusion that such is the history of the portrait prompted their generous offer to place--or replace--it in the collection. The Academy is also especially indebted to Mr. Yarnall for sharing his full documentation on the painting prior to its publication.

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