H98: Asa Gray (1810-1888)

Identification and Creation

Object Number

H98

People

George Peter Alexander Healy, American (Boston, MA 1813 - 1894 Chicago, IL)
Asa Gray (1810-1888)

Title

Asa Gray (1810-1888)

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

1885

Culture

American

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/304577

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

69 x 55.9 cm (27 3/16 x 22 in.)
framed: 87.6 x 73.7 x 5.7 cm (34 1/2 x 29 x 2 1/4 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• label: stretcher: 22x27/sold by/ Frost & Adam
• label: frame: From/Hastings & Davenport/Manufactured of/Butternut? Mahogany/Gold Gilt Picture Frames/No.8 Hamilton Place
• label: back of frame, bottom: National Portrait Gallery/December-May 1973/The Lazzaroni
• inscription: on verso [not in artist's hand]: Asa Gray. Healy, Jan. 1885

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Descent through the family to Katharine P. Loring and Anna P. Jackson; their gift to Harvard College "in accordance with Mrs. Gray's expressed wish," 1909.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard University Portrait Collection, Gift of the Misses Katharine P. Loring and Anna P. Jackson to Harvard College "in accordance with Mrs. Gray's expressed wish," 1909

Object Number

H98

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Publication History

• John A. Moore, "Nature in the New World", Harvard Library Bulletin (Spring 1888), vol. 36, p. 171, ill.
• Laura M. Huntsinger, Harvard Portraits: A Catalogue of Portrait Paintings at Harvard University, ed. Alan Burroughs, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1936), pp. 64-65
• "The Portraits in the Faculty Room, University Hall", Harvard Alumni Bulletin (October 12, 1963), vol. 66, p. 74, ill.
• Louise Todd Ambler, Early Science at Harvard: Innovators and Their Instruments, 1765 - 1865, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, December 1969-January 1970), pp. 64, 78, cat. 68
• Lillian B. Miller, The Lazzaroni, Science and Scientists in Mid-Nineteenth Century America, Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, D.C., 1972), p. 81, ill.
• Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. and Melissa Renn, American Paintings at Harvard, Volume One: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born before 1826, Yale University Press (U.S.) and Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge and New Haven, 2014), pp. 30, 258, cat. 207, ill.

Exhibition History

• Early Science at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 12/18/1969 - 02/01/1970
• The Lazzaroni, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, 12/26/1972 - 05/30/1973

Verification Level