Russell Sturgis, 1822¹
Oil on canvas
30 1/16 x 25 1/16 in. (76.4 x 63.6 cm)
Gift of the Paine Charitable Trust, 1965.254

Provenance
Russell Sturgis to George Washington Sturgis (1793–1826) in 1822; by bequest, to his daughter Anna Elizabeth Sturgis (d. 1828).² By 1878 it was in the possession of her aunt, Ann Cushing Sturgis Paine (Mrs. Frederic William Paine) (1797–1892);³ to her son George Sturgis Paine (1833–1908), who placed the portrait on permanent loan at the Worcester Art Museum on August 9, 1901; to his brother James Perkins Paine (1827–1910); to his children Russell Sturgis Paine (b. 1871), Lois Orne Paine (b. 1866), Rose Chandler Paine (b. 1868), and Alice Paine (b. 1874), who jointly owned the portrait as part of the Paine Charitable Trust until it was formally given to the Worcester Art Museum in 1965.⁴

References
Paine 1878, 25.

Mason 1879, 262.

BMFA 1880, 21.

Worcester Art Society 1880, cat. no. 62.

Worcester Art Society 1891, cat. no. 9.

Sturgis n.d. [1893?], 59.

Sturgis 1914, 36.

Park 1926, II, 723–24, cat. no. 805; IV, 500.

Lee 1929, 40.

Worcester 1929, cat. no. 319.

Copenhagen 1930, 29, cat. no. 98.

Stockholm 1930, 29, cat. no. 97.

Worcester Annual Report 1942, 13.

Mount 1964, 375.

Worcester Annual Report 1965, x, xiii.

Henry 1968.

Teitz 1979, 60–61.

Strickler 1989, 131.

Evans 1993, 128, 137, n. 10.

Exhibitions
Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, May 4, 1880 through the summer.

Third Annual Exhibition of the Worcester Art Society at Horticultural Hall, Worcester Art Society, Worcester, Mass., April 1880, cat. no. 62.

Loan Collection of Portraits Exhibited by the Worcester Art Society in the New Public Library Building, Worcester Art Society, Worcester, Mass., March 31–April 1891, cat. no. 9.

Exhibition of American Eighteenth Century Art Owned in and near Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, March 10–March 31, 1929, cat. no. 319.

Uställning av Amerikansk Konst, Kungl. Akademien för de fria konsterna, Stockholm, March 15–April 7, 1930, cat. no. 97.

Udstilling of Amerikansk Kunst, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, May 3–22, 1930, cat. no. 98.

Paintings, Silver, and Other Objects Given by Members of the Paine Family, Worcester Art Museum, July 15–September 17, 1967.

American Art from the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Tex., April 27–June 24, 1979.

Notes
1. Until the portrait's date was established by Philip Klausmeyer's recent discovery of the pencil inscription on the back of the frame, Worcester's Russell Sturgis had been dated to about 1820. Park had assigned this date in 1926, and it continued with Evans 1993, 128, 137, n. 10.

This portrait was previously published as Mr. Russell Sturgis in BMFA 1880, 21; Portrait (Russell Sturgis) in Worcester Art Society 1880, cat. no. 62; Portrait av Russell Sturgis in Stockholm 1930, 29, cat. no. 97; Portraet af Russell Sturgis in Copenhagen 1930, 29, 98; Portrait of Russell Sturgis in Lee 1929, 40.

Two portraits of Sturgis were exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum for the 1828 Stuart memorial exhibition (cat. nos. 115, 172). However, it has not been determined if one of those portraits was Worcester's. Perkin and Gavin 1980, 134–45.

2. George Washington Sturgis, Canton, to Russell Sturgis, Boston, October 18–19, 1822, Paine Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society (hereafter cited as PFP, AAS), Worcester, Mass., box 3, folder 3; and codicil to the will of George Washington Sturgis, June 20, 1826, Suffolk County no. 28090.

3. Paine 1878, 25, and Worcester Art Society 1891, cat. no. 9. It seems possible that after Anna Elizabeth Sturgis's death the portrait came into the possession of Elizabeth Perkins Sturgis (Mrs. Russell Sturgis), because in 1833 her son James Perkins Sturgis wrote to his unmarried sister, Betsy (1788–1873), who lived with Mrs. Sturgis, about borrowing one of his father's last Stuart portraits. James P. Sturgis, Canton, to Betsy Sturgis, Boston, June 16, 1833, PFP, AAS, box 3, folder 4. The portrait likely remained in Betsy's possession after her mother's death in 1843, and at her death in 1873, it would have been bequeathed to her sister Ann Cushing Paine. Will of Betsy Sturgis, Suffolk County no. 53805.

4. Worcester Art Museum Boxing Book, I, 65, August 9, 1901; and Henry 1968. The Worcester Art Museum's copy of Park 1926 contains dated notes by Alice Paine. On September 29, 1954, in cat. no. 805, she crossed out Park's sentence about the present owner being Russell Sturgis (her brother) and wrote "Paine Trust (First Trust, 1908)."