Miss Van Alen

Provenance

Recorded as from Kinderhook, New York.[1] Mr. Van Tassel, Muitzeskill, Rensselaer County, New York. (Edith Gregor Halpert, The Downtown Gallery, New York, 1932-1947), by whom sold in 1947 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; gift to NGA, 1956. [1] The pamphlet accompanying the 1933 Downtown Gallery exhibition _American Ancestors_ states that this portrait was found in Kinderhook, New York. Downtown Gallery records on microfilm at the Archives of American Art indicate, however, that the portrait was purchased in Ridgefield, Connecticut. They record that the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center [Williamsburg, Virginia] _Miss Van Alen_ was found in Ridgefield but "purchased formerly by H. in Kinderhook, New York, where the family resided." Mrs. Holger Cahill, the former owner of the AARFAC portrait, thinks both portraits were bought in Kinderhook by Edith Halpert of the Downtown Gallery from descendants of the Van Alen family, or a dealer in the area (letter of 31 June 1974 to Barbara Luck, curator, AARFAC, copy in NGA curatorial files).

Miss Van Alen

Gansevoort Limner, The

c. 1735

Accession Number

1956.13.14

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 79.2 x 66.4 cm (31 3/16 x 26 1/8 in.) | framed: 93.3 x 79.7 x 3.8 cm (36 3/4 x 31 3/8 x 1 1/2 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

Credit Line

Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch