Thomas Sully

(1783-1872)

Mrs. John Redman Coxe (Sarah Cox) 36 1/4 x 29 1/4in (92.1 x 74.3cm)

Footnotes

Provenance
The artist.
Dr. John Redman Coxe, husband of the sitter, commissioned from the above, 1813.
Mrs. Edward Parke Custis Lewis, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Mrs. James Millar Cumming.
James Graham & Sons, New York.
Mrs. Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, acquired from the above, 1962.
Gift to the present owner from the above, 1995.

Exhibited
Durham, North Carolina, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, August 2006-March 2007.
Durham, North Carolina, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, until May 2016.

Literature
C.H. Hart, A Register of Portraits Painted by Thomas Sully 1801-1871, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1908, p. 47, no. 362 (as Cox Mrs. Dr.).
E. Biddle, M. Fielding, The Life and Works of Thomas Sully (1783-1872), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1921, p. 129, no. 382.
G. O'Brien, "Room Settings Put Art in Perspective," The New York Times, December 6, 1961, vol. CXI, No. 37,937, p.56, illustrated.
E. Biddle, M. Fielding, The Life and Works of Thomas Sully, New York, 1970, p. 129, no. 382.

This half-length portrait painted by Thomas Sully in 1813 is of Mrs. Sarah Coxe, the wife of Dr. John Redman Coxe of Philadelphia, a prominent pharmacist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Coxe was also the daughter of the American Revolutionary War Colonel John Cox of New Jersey. Sully has painted her resting her arm on a draped chair next to her and staring off into the distance. She is wrapped in an elegant shawl and adorning a fashionable empire wasted dress. The vivid pigments, emphasized by the contrast between Mrs. Coxe's deep red shawl and the green cloth that covers the blue chair against her luminous white dress, is characteristic of Sully's work. Sully was also well known for his adept brushwork and his ability to depict various textures, as seen in the technical virtuosity used to render the shawl and dress.