Gilbert Stuart
Born North Kingston, R.I., December 3, 1755.
Died Boston, Mass., July 9, 1828.

Margaret Crease Stackpole Welch
(Mrs. Francis Welch)
, about 18151
Oil on mahogany panel
2
26 x 21 9/16 x 1/4 in. (66 x 54.7 x .7 cm)
Gift of Francis C. and E. Sohier Welch, 1997.153

Provenance
Probably Francis Welch to his son Charles Alfred Welch (18151908); to his son Charles A. Welch, Jr. (18471926); to his nephew, E. Sohier Welch, Esq. (18881948); to his second wife, Margaret Welch; to her stepson, Holmes Hinkley Welch (19211981); to his children, including Barbara Orlovsky; purchased in the early nineties by their uncles, Francis C. and E. Sohier Welch, great-great-grandsons of the sitter, who gave it to the Worcester Art Museum.3

References
Mason 1879, 276.

Welch 1907, 71.

Park 1926, II, 79899, cat. no. 892; IV, 561.

American Portraits 1939, 450, cat. no. 2390.

Mount 1964, 377.

"Stuart Portraits," Worcester Calendar, JuneAugust 1998, 9.

Notes
1. This portrait was previously published as Mrs. Francis Welch in Mason 1879, 276; Margaret Crease (Stackpole) Welch in American Portraits 1939, 450, cat. no. 2390; and Mrs. Francis Welch (Margaret Crease Stackpole) in "Stuart Portraits," Worcester Calendar, JuneAugust 1998, 9.

2. Wood identification is based on scientific analysis of the cell structure by dendrologist R. Bruce Hoadley, January 5, 2000.

3. Sohier Welch to Laura Mills, February 17, 2000, Worcester Art Musuem curatorial files (hereafter cited as WAM files), Worcester, Mass. See also Mason 1879, 276, and Park 1926, II, 798. Francis Welch and Margaret Crease Stackpole Welch (Mrs. Francis Welch) were on loan from Holmes Hinkley Welch to the Worcester Art Museum from January 6, 1972, to November 22, 1975. From April 1988 until they entered the collection of the Worcester Art Museum, the portraits were on long-term loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, from Barbara Orlovsky. Stephen Fisher, Registrar, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, to Laura Mills, December 11, 1998, WAM files.