INAUGURAL PAINTING #1

John Adams

by Eliphalet Frazer Andrews

OIL ON CANVAS, 1881

In recognition of the 200th anniversary of the Inauguration of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as President and Vice President of the United States, portraits of the two statesmen were chosen to be displayed at the 1997 Inaugural Luncheon.   

The portrait of John Adams is by American artist Eliphalet F. Andrews.  It is a reversed-image copy of the 1860 George P.A. Healy work now held by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  The Healy portrait was based on Gilbert Stuart’s life portrait that hung at the Adams’s Quincy, Massachusetts, homestead for many years.  The Andrew’s portrait of Adams was purchased for the Capitol directly from the artist in 1881.  The painting of Thomas Jefferson is by noted American artist Thomas Sully.  In 1821 Sully traveled to Monticello to capture a likeness of Jefferson for the United States Military Academy at West Point.  A copy of the West Point portrait, created by the artist, was purchased by Congress from the artist’s grandson in 1873.  Both the Adams and Jefferson portraits are currently on view in the Lyndon B. Johnson Room in the Capitol. 

INAUGURAL PAINTING #2

Thomas Jefferson 

by Thomas Sully

OIL ON CANVAS, 1856

 U.S. Senate Collection
 Washington, D.C. 

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth in 1743, a portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Thomas Sully was displayed at the Inaugural Luncheon. 

In 1821 Thomas Sully visited Monticello, where he drew Thomas Jefferson from life.  Over the years, Sully created numerous paintings of Jefferson based on the original sketch, including the Senate’s painting in 1856.  Scholar Alfred L. Bush, writing in 1987 in The Life Portraits of Thomas Jefferson, called the Senate’s Sully portrait “one of the most notable.”  Since its purchase in 1874, the portrait has continuously graced the walls of the Senate wing of the Capitol, and is currently on display in the Lyndon B. Johnson Room.