H193: Charles Devens (1820-1891)

Identification and Creation

Object Number

H193

People

Frederic Porter Vinton, American (Bangor, ME 1846 - 1911 Boston, MA)
Charles Devens (1820-1891)

Title

Charles Devens (1820-1891)

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

1891

Places

Creation Place: North America, United States

Culture

American

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/311243

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

126.9 x 92 cm (49 15/16 x 36 1/4 in.)
framed: 166.4 x 131.8 x 13.3 cm (65 1/2 x 51 7/8 x 5 1/4 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• Signed: l.l.: 1891 / Frederic P. Vinton
• label: bottom of frame, wood: CHARLES DEVENS/1820-1891/F.P. VINTON
• (not assigned): verso: Gen. Charles Devens / U. S. Attorney-Gen. / This copy was made in 1891 from the original / portrait in possession of the U. S. Government, Washington / Frederic P Vinton, N.A. Boston / Commissioned by A. Lithgow Devens, Esq. and Misses Devens

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Commissioned in 1891 by Arthur Lithgow Devens, Mary Devens, and Agnes (Devens) Osborn, the nephew and nieces of Charles Devens, after an 1884 version of the painting by Frederic P. Vinton.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard University Portrait Collection, Gift of Arthur Lithgow Devens and his sisters, 1891

Object Number

H193

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.

Descriptions

Description

An earlier 1884 version of Devens's portrait by Vinton hangs in the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

Publication History

• William Garrott Brown, A List of Portraits in the Various Buildings of Harvard University, Harvard University Library (Cambridge, MA, 1898), p. 15
• Laura M. Huntsinger, Harvard Portraits: A Catalogue of Portrait Paintings at Harvard University, ed. Alan Burroughs, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1936), p. 46, ill. p. 47
• Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 381, cat. 414, ill.

Verification Level