Bad history

Just for fun I decided to revisit the work of T. Allston Brown, who the National Gallery of Art depends upon greatly for their provenance.

from T. Allston Brown's History of the American Stage, 1870 (nine years after the citation used by the NGA)

Peppin and Burschard. - Peppin and Burschard, with a French Circus, landed in Boston in 1806, from Spain. They performed in conjunction with West, at Philadelphia. Peppin built the Walnut Street Theatre. Peppin had a thorough military education. He was an officer in the cavalry of France. He was born in Albany. His parents were French. They left Albany for Paris when Peppin was two years of age.

http://www.circushistory.org/History/Brown.htm#P

Aside from not knowing how to spell Pépin or Breschard, getting the year they arrived in the USA wrong, 1807 not 1806, Pépin and Breschard together not ever working with West, both Pépin and Breschard building the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, not Pépin alone, and Mrs. Pépin having never gone to France, I guess the rest of his piece is correct.

For someone who is relied upon as a source for the Smithsonian, getting six facts wrong out of a possible ten is a poor, poor performance.

This is the author the NGA uses to negate Mason, Riggs, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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More governmental errors

(The following is  in reply to an inquiry.)

As has been mentioned, Peter Grain worked in the Circus of Pépin and Breschard. At the moment I’m looking at an image of an 1809 newspaper notice. P. Grain’s drama “Billy” is advertised by Pépin and Breschard and Grain has the leading role. Grain was a member of the company for at least a year. Having worked with Jean Breschard, I feel comfortable in assuming Grain would be capable of recognizing a portrait of his former boss.

You should look into exactly who George Washing Riggs was. Among other things he was probably the richest man in the United States during his time, an advisor to Presidents, and one of the founders of the most prestigious Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It was he who identified the sitter to Mason. In my files is a copy of a handwritten note from Riggs to Mason identifying the portrait as being that of Breschard.

Pépin and Breschard were the premiere performers in the U.S. from 1808 until 1815. (Very few people in this country can name the most popular performers of any decade during the 19th century.) Calling either of them a minor circus equestrian shows poor scholarship on someone’s part. Some research into historical newspapers will prove an education on this point. The NGA has been professionally negligent about this.

Ricketts’s brother being the first owner of this particular painting is a misreading of an extremely dubious source. This attribution is at best a rumor and at worst, well, never mind. This is by far the weakest part of the NGA provenance and does not rise to meet any academic standard.

When someone is in the entertainment business, there are numerous reasons why one would wish their portrait painted.

M indicates that Ricketts left for the West Indies before the painting was finished. This is without any factual basis. A Mr. C at the NGA had serious doubts about the Ricketts ID in the late 60s (I’d have to look at my notes for a more precise date), his research into the identification was a bit shallow since, I believe, the NGA is basically more interested in the portrait being by Stuart than in exactly who the sitter is.

Breschard, the Circus Rider by Gilbert Stuart

In 2004, thanks to the wonders of Google, a portrait of Jean Baptiste Breschard by Gilbert Stuart became known to me. Having only discovered the existence of this historical Breschard a few years previous, I was intrigued. Unfortunately, the name of this particular painting was no longer “Breschard, the Circus Rider,” the sitter was now designated as “John Bill Ricketts,” the portrait's identification being changed by the National Gallery of Art sometime in the 1970s.

After having completed a great deal of research and having read pertinent parts of the NGA archive, I became convinced by the existing evidence that in all probability the portrait by Gilbert Stuart was indeed that of Jean Baptiste Casmiere Breschard.

So I wrote a book about the man, the circus, the artist, the painting, the NGA, etc.. I’m presently in the process of having it published.

The main reason I’m writing this is due to the fact that another student of Stuart has come across the controversy and is using some of the entries I’ve helped edit in Wikipedia as sources for posts to her blog. All I can say is that like all encyclopedias, Wikipedia doesn’t contain all the facts, and if I can be of any help, let me know.

Partial list of Democratic Party failures in past year

-Failure to prosecute those United States officials who authorized the torture of prisoners and those US agents and mercenaries who actually performed those criminal acts. This failure to  prosecute may itself be a criminal act.
-More than doubling the amount of troops and mercenaries in Afghanistan.
-To this day, a failure to reduce the number of troops in Iraq.
-Failure to close Guantanamo.
-Failure to bring single payer healthcare up for debate in Congress and Obama’s failure to campaign for a public option or similar method of health care insurance.
-Endorsing a mandatory purchase of private insurance by US citizens. This is probably unconstitutional.
-Continuation of a "never ending" war policy.

For myself, the Green  Party has now become the only organized political party worth backing.