Another Gilbert Stuart Lost Painting

In my most recent book, CIRCUS RIDER; a novel history of the first American circus, the identity of the sitter for a Gilbert Stuart portrait is an object of debate. The two contenders for who’s who in this piece of early American art history are John Bill Ricketts, an Englishman who brought the first circus to the United States in the 1790s; and Jean Baptiste Breschard, who with his partner, Victor Pépin, captivated the newly liberated colonists with their performances from 1807 until 1815. Traveling a seasonal circuit including New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, Boston and Charleston; Breschard, a Frenchman, and Pépin, a native New Yorker, entertained Americans at their permanent circus theatres with years of sold-out performances including equestrian shows, circus acts, classical drama, melodramas, comic plays, hippodrama and lots, lots, more!

In 1970 the National Gallery of Art renamed this portrait “John Bill Ricketts,” disregarding the definitive 1879 identification of the sitter as Jean B. Breschard by George C. Mason (author of The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart), George Washington Riggs (known as “The President’s Banker” and a founder of the Corcoran Museum of Art) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Mason’s book and the Boston Museum’s exhibition weren’t sufficient evidence for the NGA. Living witnesses to Breschard’s performances weren’t enough. Instead they turned to a small note by T. Allston Brown, a gentleman with a reputation for inaccuracy, and changed the name of Stuart’s painting from "Breschard, the Circus Rider" to "John Bill Ricketts."

The entire NGA identification rests upon unsupported statements by T. Allston Brown as to who owned the portrait previous to George Washington Riggs. According to Brown the last owner before Mr. Riggs was a certain Peter Grain, a Frenchman and artist. This is the NGA provenance and primary reason for changing the identification. http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/tinfo_f?object=3160&detail=prov

Oddly enough Peter Grain’s son, Peter Grain, Junior, spent most of his professional career working as a scenic director at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia which was built by Pépin and Breschard. If someone could show that Peter Grain, the elder, was a member of the Circus of Pépin and Breschard, it certainly would go a long way to discrediting the NGA provenance based on the words of T. Allston Brown (This was a man who could publish six factual mistakes within a single paragraph. See my January 8, 2010 blog post. ).

By request of Beth Ahrens-Kley who publishes a Gilbert Stuart blog and is currently researching this particular debate, what follows is fairly definitive proof that Peter Grain was a member of the Circus of Pépin and Breschard. Peter Grain would certainly be capable of identifying his old boss, Jean Baptiste Breschard and passing this information along to George Washington Riggs. This should put an end to any justification for the current NGA stand that the portrait is of Ricketts. Any reasonable institution should once again identify the portrait as Breschard, the Circus Rider.

An 1809 advertisement for the Circus of Pépin and Breschard in New York

 

“This Evening, Aug. 2, 1809, Messrs. Pepin, & Breschard, will have the honor to give a brilliant representation of Horsemanship, Vaulting and Dancing.

To which will be added for the first time the New Pantomime of BILLY, or the Reward of a Good Action, performed with combats, &c. by Mr. P. Grain”

and now from the Walnut Street Theatre

 follow this link: Stuart portrait identified as Breschard

This is  only the beginning. It's time to bring back this forgotten piece of history.

CIRCUS RIDER

a novel history of the first American circus

and a great Gilbert Stuart American portrait

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