Description:Oil. Head to waist. Dark brown hair. Draped white collar, suit. Right hand showing. Left arm down. Drape to the top left and above.
History:Former director at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art looked at the portrait and told owner it was probably the work of an artist who toured the countryside with the backgrounds painted and the artist then painted in the subject's head. This would make sense since owner knows of a smaller copy housed at "Duddington" in Sparks, Maryland. A cousin always said the artist was an itinerant Frenchman that Sterett befriended. Portrait restored in the 1980's by Cumberland Art Conservation.
Notes:Samuel Sterett was a representative from Maryland; born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1758. He moved with his parents to Baltimore, Maryland in 1761; completed prep studies; was graduated from the Univerisity of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; held several local offices; member of the independent company (military) of Baltimore merchants in 1777; appointed private secretary to the President of Congress in November 1782; member of the state senate in 1789; elected as an Anti-Administration candidate to the Second Congress (March 4, 1791-March 3, 1793); secretary of the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery in 1791; member of the Baltimore committee of safety in 1812; served as captain of an independent company at the Battle of North Point, Sept. 12, 1814 (His uniform was in Fort McHenry); grand marshal at Baltimore at the laying of the foundation stone of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, July 4, 1828: died in Baltimore, Md., July 12, 1833; interment in the burying ground of Westminster Church. (http://bioguide.congress.gov)
