Chester Harding (US, 1792-1866)

Chester Harding
(American, 1792-1866)

"Portrait of John McDonnell (1807-1863)", ca. 1842

oil on canvas
unsigned.
Framed.
27-1/8" x 22-1/8", framed 34-1/8" x 29-1/8"

Provenance: With the McDonnells, thence by descent to their eldest daughter, Cora Ann McDonnell McGraw (1839-1906); to her daughter, Cora McGraw Law (1867-1957); to her niece, Lucille "Lucy" McGraw Collins (1893-1950); to her son Frederick Hunter Collins, Jr. (1921-1967) and his wife Josephine Thomas Collins Watkins (1924-1992); to their son Frederick Hunter Collins III (b. 1949).

Exhibited: Cabildo, Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans, 1942;
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; J. B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky. Washington, D.C., 1985.

Literature: Accompanied by select correspondence with the heirs, including two 1942-1943 exhibition letters from the Louisiana State Museum sent to Cora Law; a 1984 letter from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute sent to Josephine Collins confirming the inclusion of the painting in its exhibition catalogue; and a 2003 letter from a conservator to the current owner.

Mrs. Thomas Nelson Carter Bruns, Louisiana Portraits, New Orleans, National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1975, p. 180; Leah Lipton, A Truthful Likeness: Chester Harding and His Portraits. Exh. cat. National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; J. B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky. Washington, D.C., 1985.

Notes: "I need not extol John McDonnell's catering. He is too well known in that particular to make it at all necessary. From the opening of the old St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, his early connection with Pass Christian, the City Hotel, in Natchez, to his present admirable restaurant in Common street (no. 147), he has ever proved himself a most excellent and bountiful provider of everything good to eat and drink."
--"Letter from the Lakefront", Special Correspondence, Ocean Springs, Miss., June 8, 1856

As the caption above states, the sitter of this portrait, John McDonnell, was the ultimate hotelier/restauranteur, the consummate host, well regarded for the luxury resorts he established. In 1837 McDonnell married Henrietta Tarascon Gilly (see lot 63) and launched the famous St. Charles Hotel, one of the first great hotels in the United States that preceded the Astor. A. Oakley Hall, later Mayor of New York City, hailed the hotel- "a palace of creature comforts; a college for the study of human nature, and an exchange for money and appetite" on par with an "exchange in London" or a "Palace in St. Petersburg." Both McDonnell's daughters Cora Ann and Alice (1840-1848), pictured in lot 62 with their mother, were born in the hotel, and resided there at the time they sat for their portrait by Harding- a probable guest of the St. Charles. The Carrollton Hotel in New Orleans on the waterfront at the terminus of the St. Charles rail line and the New Brighton Hotel in Pass Christian followed with equal accolades. According to reviews, the former was situated on a four acres garden with a racetrack, at which dinner was prepared nightly after the races. Additional resorts were established along the Gulf and Mississippi River in Ocean Springs and Natchez, and a final restaurant, McDonnells. In 1858 McDonnell was joined by his son-in-law, Cora's husband Morris McGraw, who operated the Pass Christian Hotel. Morris and Cora had eight children. Following the Civil War in which McGraw served as a Private in the 5th Louisiana Infantry, he left the hotel business and established a woodenware business on Gravier Street until his death in 1903. His daughter Cora Law, named after his Mother, had the paintings preserved and exhibited at the Louisiana State Museum. Her niece Lucy McGraw Collins, who inherited the portraits, was a philanthropist; she established the New Orleans chapter of the American Women's Voluntary Services and served on the board of Charity Hospital.

The McDonnell portraits and Clendinen portraits in lots 64-65 descended in the same family through the Collins/Thomas marriage when Lucy McGraw Collins' son Frederick Collins II (1921-1967) married Josephine Thomas Collins Watkins (1924-1992). Collins Watkins' maternal grandmother was a Catchings and the great-granddaughter of the Clendinens in lot 64-65. In 1975, she and her daughters are listed as the owners of these portraits by the Colonial Dames' Louisiana Portraits text.
Dimensions: 29.125 x 34.125 in
Condition Report: In overall very good professionally restored condition. The painting has been restretched with new stretchers and relined. Under UV light, there are a few small inpainted repair "touch-ups" and line filler scattered throughout. The face is remarkably intact. There are some small spots of inpainting to the background under the varnish layer, one of which is a probable small tear repair to the lower right before the work was relined. The painting has light stretcher marks and fine craquelure throughout.