Thomas Sully

Thomas Sully was a portrait, miniature, and figure painter. He was born on June 19, 1873 in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, the fourth child of Matthew Sully and Sarah Chester, who were both actors. In 1792, the family emigrated to the United States and settled in Charleston, South Carolina. Sully began his professional life in the office of an insurance broker. Although he and his employer soon realized his aptitude was for artistic endeavors, the time spent in the business world served Sully well as he was astutue in his later financial affairs. Next, he was placed under the tutelage of Jean Belzons, his brother-in-law, and in September of 1799 he joined an older brother, Lawrence Sully, a miniature and device painter, in Richmond, Virginia. In 1801, he began his independent career in Norfolk, Virginia. Sully married his sister-in-law, SARAH (Annis) SULLY in 1805, after the death of his brother, and they moved to New York City.

Children by Sarah were: Jane Chester Sully (5/7/1806-5/1814), Jane Cooper Sully (1/14/1807; m. William Henry Westray Darley on 2/16/1833; she died 3/3/1877), Thomas Sully Jr. (4/29/1807-1/1810), Thomas Wilcocks Sully (1/2/1811-4/18/1847), Blanche Sully (8/13/1814-4/30/1898), Ellen Oldmixon Sully (1/22/1816; m. 11/8/1838 John H. Wheeler, she died 8/6/1896), Rosalie Kemble Sully (6/3/1818-7/8/1847), Alfred Sully (5/22/1820-4/27/1879), and Virginia Isabella Sully (4/22/1824-8/22/1825).

Two years later he moved on to Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts, but in 1808 settled permanently in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

From 1809 to 1810, Sully was in England receiving instruction from Benjamin West and Sir Thomas Lawrence. Upon his return and the subsequent deaths of Charles Willson Peale and Gilbert Stuart, he became the leading portrait painter in the United States. He knew most, if not all, the leading artists of the day, both in America and abroad. He traveled to England with his daughter Blanche, and returned in 1838, having done many portraits. After returning to Philadelphia, Sully averaged 35 to 40 portraits a year for the remainder of his life and made occasional professional visits to Baltimore, Boston, Washington DC, Charleston, Providence and Richmond. Among his subjects were Thomas Jefferson, Lafayette, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Andrew Jackson, King Charles, Benjamin Rush, and Washington Irving.

Sully died in Philadelphia on November 5, 1872. Of his nine children, six survived infancy and all were either amateur or professional artists, while one of his step-daughters married the portrait painter, John Neagle.

• 1870 census: Thomas Sully (86, b Eng?); in Philadelphia, Penn. w dau. Blanche (45, b Penn) and children of his deceased step-daughter Mary Sully; they being Elizabeth Nagle (38, b PA), Garrett C. Nagle (36, b PA), Susan Nagle (30, b PA) and Mary Nagle (28, b PA). Thomas is an artist, Garrett works as an Internal Revenue Collector......it is noted that his wife Sarah (Annis) Sully had died in 1867; her dau. Mary C. Sully and her husband John Neagle had also died...this was also after the Civil War and the quality of data collection; with age, spelling, and location errors is noted in this and other census recordings.
• 1872 death certif: Thomas Sully, artist, died Nov. 5, 1872 in Philadelphia, Pa. Old age. Born England. Burial at Laurel Hill.

THOMAS SULLY .... Birth: Jun. 8, 1783 (see Wki above) Death: Nov. 5, 1872

Artist. Produced around 260 works, and established a reputation as a leading portrait painter. Some of his most famous portraits include Queen Victoria(1838), Washington Irving, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. He also painted historical scenes, most notably "Washington Crossing the Delaware" (which now hangs in the Boston Museum of Art) and "The Capture of Major Andre". His son was Civil War Union Brigadier General Alfred Sully. Father and son are buried in the same plot. (bio by: Russ Dodge)

Family links:

Spouse:

 Sarah Sully (1779 - 1867)*

Children:

 Alfred Sully (1820 - 1879)*

 Blanche Sully (1814 - 1898)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial: Laurel Hill Cemetery Philadelphia Philadelphia County Pennsylvania, USA Plot: Section A, Lot 41

Edit Virtual Cemetery info [?]

Maintained by: Find A Grave Record added: Jan 01, 2001 Find A Grave Memorial# 1004

• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Sully&GSiman=...
• http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tsly/hd_tsly.htm. Trip to London in 1837 w dau. Blanche (aged 23). to paint protrait of Queen Victoria.
• http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/14.126.5
• http://www.metmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/listings/2000/thomas-sully
• http://findingaid.winterthur.org/html/HTML_Finding_Aids/COL0164.htm

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sully

Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783 – November 5, 1872) was an American (English-born) painter, mostly of portraits.

Life and career

Early life

Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, to the actors Matthew and Sarah Sully. In March 1792 the Sullys and their nine children immigrated to Richmond, Virginia, where Thomas’s uncle managed a theater. The boy attended school in New York City until 1794, when his mother died and he returned to Richmond. By July of that year the family was in Charleston, South Carolina. After a brief apprenticeship to an insurance broker who recognized his artistic talent, at age 12 or thereabouts Sully began painting and studied with his brother-in-law Jean Belzons (active 1794–1812), a French miniaturist, until they had a falling-out in 1799. He then returned to Richmond to learn "miniature & Device painting" from his elder brother Lawrence Sully (1769–1804). After Lawrence Sully's death, Thomas Sully married his sister-in-law, Lawrence's widow, Sarah Annis Sully and not only took on the raising of Lawrence's children but fathered an additional nine children with Sarah himself. Among the children were Alfred Sully, Mary Chester Sully (who married Sully's protégé, the painter John Neagle), Jane Cooper Sully Darley, Blanche, Rosalie Sully, and Thomas Wilcocks Sully. Sully was also one of the founding members of The Musical Fund Society where he painted the portraits of many of the musicians and composers.

Painting

Sully became a professional painter at age 18 in 1801. He studied portrait painting under Gilbert Stuart in Boston for three weeks. After some time in Virginia with this brother, Sully moved to New York, after which he moved to Philadelphia in 1806, where he resided for the remainder of his life. In 1809 he traveled to London for nine months of study under Benjamin West.

Sully's 1824 portraits of John Quincy Adams, who became President within the year, and then the Marquis de Lafayette appear to have brought him to the forefront of his day. (His Adams portrait may be seen in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.) Many famous Americans of the day had their portraits painted by him. In 1837–1838 he was in London to paint Queen Victoria at the request of Philadelphia's St. George's Society. His daughter Blanche assisted him as the Queen's "stand-in", modeling the Queen's costume when she was not available. One of Sully's portraits of Thomas Jefferson is owned by the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society at the University of Virginia and hangs in that school's Rotunda. Another Jefferson portrait, this one head-to-toe, hangs at West Point, as is his portrait of Alexander Macomb (American general).

Sully's own index indicates that he produced 2631 paintings from 1801, most of which are currently in the United States. His style resembles that of Thomas Lawrence. Though best known as a portrait painter, Sully also made historical pieces and landscapes. An example of the former is the 1819 Passage of the Delaware, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Death and legacy

Sully died in Philadelphia on November 5, 1872, where he had spent the majority of his long and successful career. He is buried in the Laurel Hill Cemetery. His book Hints to young painters was published after his death.

Several of Sully's portraits hang in the chambers of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies of the University of North Carolina. Portraits, including that of President James K. Polk, were commissioned of notable alumni from the Societies.

His son, Alfred Sully, was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Through Alfred, he is the great-grandfather of the noted Yankton Sioux ethnologist and writer Ella Deloria and the great-great-grandfather of Standing Rock Sioux scholar and writer Vine Deloria, Jr., author of Custer Died For Your Sins (1969), an American Indian civil-rights manifesto.

Sully was a great-uncle of the New Orleans-based architect, also named Thomas Sully (1855–1939).

Gallery of works

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sully#Gallery_of_works