Technical Notes
The painting's primary support is a plain-weave canvas that appears to have been commercially prepared. The original tacking edges are still intact, and there is little to no cusping along the edges of the canvas. The painting is attached to a wooden stretcher with keyable corner joints.

The off-white ground layer was evenly applied, extends completely over the tacking edges, and has a slightly pebbled texture. It was applied thickly enough to hide the texture of the canvas.

In general, the painting was developed with opaque and semiopaque applications of paint. Broad areas appear to have been blocked in first and colors were partially blended on the canvas. Forms were developed primarily with wet-on-dry applications of opaque paint. There is very low impasto on the white highlights. The drapery was painted with broad, loose brushstrokes; quick, loose, opaque highlights were painted on top. Gullager achieved the sheer appearance of the black mantle by applying varied tones of opaque gray and white and by painting thin applications of black paint over the white, blue, and flesh colors. The proper left arm was painted on top of the mantle and the flesh tones now appear dark in that area due to the increased transparency and the abrasion of the paint. A pentimento is visible of the proper right index finger, which was originally curled under.

The drapery and sofa have faded considerably as demonstrated by the richer, deeper red that remains at the edges of the painting where it was protected by the frame rabbet. The blue dress has also faded from a much richer blue to its present color.

The paint layers have an extensive network of aging and drying cracks. The drying cracks occur in a branched pattern and are less pronounced than the aging cracks. There are fewer aging cracks in the margins of the painting, where the canvas is directly over the stretcher, than in the rest of the painting. The most marked abrasions to the surface are located in the proper right cheek and the proper left forearm and hand. Inpainting and retouching are limited to a few of the widest cracks and the abraded areas of the portrait.

In 1985 the painting was varnished with a moderately thick application of Acryloid B-72. The varnish is now matte but shows no signs of discoloration.

Frame Notes
The carved softwood frame is of single-piece construction. The corners are mitered and have cross-splines on the back. The inner and outer edges of the frame are gilded and the rest is painted black. The inner edge has a row of carved half-round beads, followed by a plain central cove. The outer edge has gadrooning that changes directions at the center point of each side.

The frame is stamped "S. WADE" on the back panel of each vertical member of the frame. The frames on at least four other portraits by Gullager Daniel Waldo, Daniel Greenleaf and Elizabeth Greenleaf (both about 1791, location unknown), and Nathaniel Soley (location unknown) are stamped in the same manner. The Waldos lived in Worcester, the Greenleafs in Boston, and Soley in Charlestown or Billerica, Massachusetts.¹ The identity of S. Wade might be Simeon Wade (about 1757–1806), who was listed in the 1789 Boston city directory as a housewright and the operator of a boarding house in Pierce's Alley. In 1796, when the next Boston directory was published, Wade was listed as a housewright on Middlecot Street. He was forty-nine years old when he died on May 2, 1806 after falling from the roof of a house.²

Notes
1. For more information on the Greenleaf portraits, see Dresser 1949b 145, 147.

2. "A Record of Deaths in Boston and Vicinity," NEHGS 78: 310 (April 1924): 186.