The Winterthur Library

 The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE  19735

302-888-4600 or 800-448-3883

 

 

OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION

 

Creator:         Lawrence Park, 1873-1924

Title:               Papers            

Dates:             1908-1923

Call No.:         Col. 96           

Acc. No.:        72x359

Quantity:        2 boxes

Location:        9 E 5

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

 

Lawrence Park was an architect who became an expert in American colonial art, particularly portraiture.  He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1873, the son of Elizabeth Bigelow Lawrence and John Gray Park.  Lawrence attended Harvard University from 1892 to 1896, but did not take a degree.  He studied at the School of Drawing and Painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and then became a draftsman for a Boston architectural firm.  In1901, he and Robert R. Kendall formed their own architectural office, Park & Kendall.  However, Park gave up the practice around 1914 and thereafter devoted his time to the study of colonial art.  He wrote much on this subject, including works about the artists Joseph Badger and Joseph Blackburn.   He also was a non-resident curator in the Department of Colonial Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art.  As well, he was interested in genealogy and wrote books on his family and that of Major Thomas Savage.  Park was a member of numerous historical societies, including the American Antiquarian Society.

 

Park married Maria Davis Motley on November 16, 1905.  They had four children.  Park died in Groton, Massachusetts, on September 28, 1924.  At his death, he left an unfinished manuscript for a catalog of Gilbert Stuart’s work; this was consequently completed and published.

 

 

SCOPE AND CONTENT

 

This collection deals almost exclusively with Gilbert Stuart.  Park corresponded with directors and curators of museums and historical societies, owners of art galleries, owners of paintings0, and with Frank W. Bayley, Charles F. Adams, and others.  The chief correspondent was Charles Henry Hart, a noted authority on art and the history of portraiture.  This correspondence concerns Stuart's subjects and their family genealogies, dimensions of portraits, their dates, and provenance.  Notes and biographical information on Stuart are also included.

 

Other colonial artists are also discussed in Park's correspondence, including Thomas Sully, John Singleton Copley, John Trumbull, Joseph Badger, John Smibert, Robert Feke, Jacob Eichholtz, Edward Greene Malbone, Rembrandt Peale, Charles Willson Peale, Ralph Earl, Washington Allston, and Mather Brown. 

 

The Decorative Arts Photographic Collection (DAPC) houses the many photographs that came with these papers.

           

 

ORGANIZATION

           

The correspondence is arranged chronologically.

 

A paper by Richard Saunders which describes how he organized the collection is filed with the finding aid.  Also filed with the finding aid is some information about the photos removed from these papers and filed in DAPC.

 

 

RELATED MATERIALS

 

Additional letters of Lawrence Park are found in the Charles Henry Hart Papers, Col. 654, and in the Mantle Fielding Papers, Col. 207.

 

 

LANGUAGE OF MATERIALS

 

Most of the materials are in English, with a few letters in French.

 

 

RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS

 

Collection is open to the public.  Copyright restrictions may apply.

 

 

PROVENANCE

           

Gift of John G. Park and Mrs. George Skinner.

 

 

ACCESS POINTS

           

            People:

                        Allston, Washington, 1779-1843.

                        Badger, Joseph, 1708-1765.

Brown, Mather, 1761-1831.

                        Copley, John Singleton, 1738-1815.

                        Earl, Ralph, 1751-1801.

Eichholtz, Jacob, 1776-1842.

Feke, Robert, ca. 1705-1750.

                        Malbone, Edward Greene, 1777-1807.

                        Peale, Rembrandt, 1778-1860.

                        Peale, Charles Willson, 1741-1827.

Smibert, John, 1688-1751.

Stuart, Gilbert, 1755-1828.

Sully, Thomas, 1783-1872

Trumbull, John, 1756-1843.

                        Hart, Charles Henry, 1847-1918.

 

Topics:

            Artists - United States.

Painters - United States.

Painting, Colonial - United States.

            Painting - History - United States.

            Portrait painters - United States.

            Portraits - United States - Expertising.

            Correspondence.

            Clippings.

            Lists.

            Notes.

            Sketches.

            Articles.

            Portrait-painters.

            Artists.

           

 

 

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION

 

Location: 9 E 5

 

 

Box 1: Correspondence: 1908-May 1914

            Correspondence: June 1914-Dec. 1914

            Correspondence: Jan. 1915-May 1915

            Correspondence: June 1915-Dec. 1915

            Correspondence: 1916

            Correspondence: 1917

            Correspondence: 1918

            Correspondence: 1919-1923

            Correspondence: undated

 

Box 2:  Articles on Gilbert Stuart

Duplicate copies of Gilbert Stuart pedigrees

Material pertaining to Gilbert Stuart's life (2 folders)

Notes (4 folders)

            Sketches of paintings

            Miscellaneous prints, postcards, and reproductions of portraits; also a receipt, Miss Park paid for board, signed Silas J. Libby, Aug. 30, 1867