(09-21-2015 01:12 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(09-20-2015 06:33 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I have already contacted Scott for that information. I hope to hear back this week.

Reply from Scott:

Laurie,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Unfortunately, the photo taken of a portrait of Mary Surratt does not include provenance information about the painting.

Only the following text is written in pencil on the back of the photo: "Mrs. Surratt, who was hung as one of the conspirators."

The front of the photo has the label: "Copyright by F.L. Bates 1903."

I regret that we cannot be more helpful.

This looks quite like a date and signature to me, but obviously it's not?
   

(09-21-2015 05:50 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(09-21-2015 04:02 PM)Pamela Wrote:  I was wondering about charcoal, too, or even another medium, and we don't know the original size. I haven't studied primitive art in that period, or any period and when I go to museums a portrait that is finished looking is generally oil, but the curtain behind her does have a charcoal look. Nowadays artists have lacquer sprays to prevent smearing of charcoal or pastel and I don't know if anything was used in those days. I don't see any smears.

We have in storage at Surratt House a charcoal portrait of a gentleman ca. 1900 that is actually a piece of funerary art. It has no glass to protect it, but there is no sign of any smears. I wonder if they had a form of shellac?

"This process of fixing was formerly done through repeated varnishing with gum-arabic solution and even with glue or egg-white emulsion." Found this on an art history page.

Quote:This looks quite like a date and signature to me, but obviously it's not

Ah...you have very sharp eyes! It DOES look like a signature and date.....

(09-21-2015 06:15 PM)L Verge Wrote:  "This process of fixing was formerly done through repeated varnishing with gum-arabic solution and even with glue or egg-white emulsion." Found this on an art history page.

Laurie, back in the mid-1980s, before moving to DC, I ran a large graphic arts photo lab. One of the government projects we had required us to make our own photo emulsions and adhere them to frosted mylar sheets. Then we would whirl the emulsion on the sheet flat under heat and fix it with a solution of gum arabic dissolved in ether.

Smelled to high heaven and this lasted until the St. Petersburg, Florida, fire department made a tour of our lab one day. They evacuated all the employees (over 250), aired out the building for hours, and confiscated all the ether, which was in 5-gallon cans. They said that the ether could autoignite at a low temperature and blow up the whole building, no spark required.

We were glad not to have to fool with that stinky stuff anymore. No wonder the government folks were happy to sub out that work. My last adventure with gum arabic.

--Jim

(09-19-2015 08:24 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I am delighted that Scott Taylor used his historical talents to assemble such an exhibit. I have dealt with him several times when he was assisting Nicholas Sheetz at Georgetown. Nicholas has now retired, but both men were/are excellent at their jobs. They also forgave us when James O. Hall decided to give his research files to Surratt House. Georgetown and several other higher profile institutions had coveted them.

Paige, with your skills and knowledge, you really need to make time to investigate those assassination archives at Georgetown.

Finally, I hope everyone reads Carter's letter to Dr. Richard Mudd carefully and understands that Carter DID NOT PARDON Dr. Mudd. I swear that half the visitors to Surratt House believe he did. I also hope that President Carter has taken time to read the work by Steers and others to see that there is a second side to the Mudd story. IMO, President Andrew Johnson did not pardon Mudd because an injustice had been done. He did it because Mrs. Mudd was excellent at nagging for her husband's freedom and because pardoning the Lincoln conspirators was one way of Johnson slapping at the Radical Republicans who were doing him dirty!

Laurie:

I believe the petition prepared by the inmates, which attested to Dr. Mudd's selfless service during the yellow fever epidemic, also figured into Johnson's decision. Interestingly, Dr. Mudd himself contracted the disease, but survived (unlike his predecessor, Dr. Whitehead), due at least partly to the care he received from Spangler, who, for some reason, did not contract the disease. Dr. Mudd, of course, later repaid Spangler by giving him a home and a purpose on the Mudd farm. Pardoning Dr.. Mudd, he could hardly have left the other two (Arnold and Spangler) behind, so he pardoned them too. I agree completely, however, that Johnson's principal motivation was to get back at his tormentors in the Congress.

John

I agree that the petition from his captors helped tremendously and probably gave Johnson the one legitimate excuse that he could use for Mudd -- and then Arnold and Spangler gained freedom on his coattails (because they had been sent to prison on even less evidence than Mudd).

[i][i]

(09-22-2015 08:52 AM)L Verge Wrote:  I agree that the petition from his captors helped tremendously and probably gave Johnson the one legitimate excuse that he could use for Mudd -- and then Arnold and Spangler gained freedom on his coattails (because they had been sent to prison on even less evidence than Mudd).

Laurie:

Yes, especially Spangler, who was completely innocent, in my opinion. See Chapter 29 of "Decapitating"

John

We agree twice in one week!

Another page - doesn't show pictures on my mobile view, so I can only assume it's the same picture - of
the same library reads:

Mary E. Surratt
Photograph of a painting of Mary E. Surratt, done by J. A. Holder in 1903. Paper print, mounted. (Swaim Collection, GUL)

This interesting view, drawn from the only known photograph of Mary E. Surratt, shows her seated in teh foreground. Behind her is depicted the H Street boarding house where Booth and his assocaites are known to have called from time to time. This view is one of a series prepared for Finis L. Bates. It was included in his book The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth (1907).

http://www.library.georgetown.edu/exhibi...ne-mad-act

"The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth" is online here, the picture is between pp.120/121:
https://archive.org/details/escapesuicideofj00bate
   

(09-22-2015 04:23 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Another page - doesn't show pictures on my mobile view, so I can only assume it's the same picture - of
the same library reads:

Mary E. Surratt
Photograph of a painting of Mary E. Surratt, done by J. A. Holder in 1903. Paper print, mounted. (Swaim Collection, GUL)

This interesting view, drawn from the only known photograph of Mary E. Surratt, shows her seated in teh foreground. Behind her is depicted the H Street boarding house where Booth and his assocaites are known to have called from time to time. This view is one of a series prepared for Finis L. Bates. It was included in his book The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth (1907).

http://www.library.georgetown.edu/exhibi...ne-mad-act

I found this but I'm not a member of newspapers.com, so if anyone else is they can read the article. I googled Bowles Studio but nothing came up:


Search Results
Hopkinsville Kentuckian from Hopkinsville, Kentucky · Page 5
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/68178016/
Hopkinsville Kentuckian (Hopkinsville, Kentucky), Tuesday, February 12, 1918, ... Holder. Mr. J. A. holder, the artist who painted in the Bowles Studio the life size portraits of Dr. E.S. Stuart and his wife, for the Stuart Hospital, as well as other portraits here, is again ...

I found a Jennie Stuart Memorial Hospital which was founded in 1913.
If this is the same, from the Jennie Stuart Medical Center history page:

"Dr. Stuart was born near Antioch Church. His maternal grandmother, Mary Shanklin, was the midwife at the birth of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Dr. Stuart graduated from St. Louis Medical College in 1851 and began his medical practice in the Crofton area. After two years, Dr. Stuart moved his practice to Fairview and continued it there for more than 67 years. He was a Methodist, a Mason and a Democrat. He and Jane "Jennie" Vaughn had two children: May, who died in her 20s, and Willie, who died in infancy. "

On this page there are photographs of the Dr. and his wife but no portraits.

(09-23-2015 07:41 AM)Pamela Wrote:  Hopkinsville Kentuckian from Hopkinsville, Kentucky · Page 5
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/68178016/
Hopkinsville Kentuckian (Hopkinsville, Kentucky), Tuesday, February 12, 1918, ... Holder. Mr. J. A. holder, the artist who painted in the Bowles Studio the life size portraits of Dr. E.S. Stuart and his wife, for the Stuart Hospital, as well as other portraits here, is again ...

Here is what that article says:

That's so interesting that the artist painted conspirators and a scene from a book written by a member of the military tribunal that convicted them. Lew Wallace was also an artist. Thanks, Eva and Roger. I googled images for the Ben Hur painting but I am on my phone and it's limited.