Collection Presidential and First Lady Portraits
Since 1965, the White House Historical Association has been proud to fund the official portraits of our presidents and first ladies,...
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Portrait of Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams by Gilbert Stuart in 1821-1826; Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches.
This portrait, together with Stuart's 1818 likeness of Louisa's husband, John Quincy Adams, descended in the family to a great-great-grandson, who presented both of the works to the White House. Louisa Adams was about 50 when this incisive head was painted. The rest of her long life was divided between Quincy, Massachusetts, and Washington. Stuart's portrait is definitive in simultaneously presenting "the Madam" of Henry Adam's childish memory--'a little more remote than the President, but more decorative her delicate face under very becoming caps'--as well as the image he later knew to be as true, of a woman whose interior life was 'one of severe stress and little pure satisfaction.
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