Portrait of Captain Samuel Blodget in Rifle Dress

(John Trumbull)

In 1786, Trumbull completed The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill. Benjamin West called it the “best picture” of a modern battle scene ever painted. Nonetheless it owed a considerable debt to West’s own Death of Wolfe at Quebec and to the monumental paintings of Greek and Roman History Trumbull would have known from contemporary engravings. The animated pose of Lieutenant Thomas Grosvenor in the Death of General Warren has some similarities to the pose of Captain Blodget, perhaps because, as noted by Theodore Sizer, editor of Trumbull’s autobiography, Blodget’s portrait may have been done in London in the same year.[1] There is a further connection between the head of Captain Blodget in this painting, and a pencil drawing in Yale University Art Gallery of the same sitter, inscribed “Capt Blodget Princeton”. This shows the young officer half-length, in full dress uniform, his hair blowing freely as in the oil portrait here, facing half-left. [2]

Although Trumbull’s inscription on the reverse of this drawing reads “L. Blodget”, the portrait is believed to be of Captain Samuel Blodget, Jr, (1757-1814), an officer of the New Hampshire Militia, who fought at the battle of Princeton.[3] This is confirmed by Helen Cooper who wrote: “Originally, the artist may have intended to represent Blodget in The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, but none of the surviving studies show a figure in this pose. It is possible that Trumbull took Blodget’s portrait in London while planning the painting and decided later not to include it. Sizer dated the drawing to 1786 on the basis of a small portrait of Blodget ‘in a Rifle dress’ that Trumbull painted later that year in London, after Blodget had retired from the army and become a merchant in the East India Trade.’[4]

Trumbull has painted Blodget full length, but on the same scale as the figures in the history paintings he was producing at this time, rather than on the more conventional life-size portrait format. The landscape, with a view to a distant encampment and two small figures in the middle distance (left center), is also more elaborate than in any other but his grandest scale, full-length portraits. This work may be included more readily among his history paintings than numbered among his portraits, most of which at this time were produced as bust length miniatures no more than four inches high. Blodget’s pose in Rifle dress, painted almost a decade after he had resigned his commission, was evidently intended to commemorate the military service of this talented man whose own career, with its early triumphs and subsequent disappointments, in some ways resembled Trumbull’s own.

The painting was offered to the United States Government early this century and in 1912 a bill to purchase it for a sum not to exceed $700 was introduced but never passed. Sizer (op. cit.)stated incorrectly that the painting had been destroyed by fire about 1925, but in fact it survived and in 1986 was rediscovered in a collection in Southern England.

Samuel Blodget was born in Goffstown, New Hampshire, on Aug. 28 1757, the son of Samuel and Hannah Blodget (née White).[5] With the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he joined the New Hampshire Militia, of which he was appointed a Captain, serving for the first seventeen months until resigning in December 1777. Better suited to commerce than a military career, he moved to Boston where he quickly made a fortune in the East India trade. By 1790 he had moved to Philadelphia where, in 1792, he became one of the directors of the Insurance Company of North America. In the same year he married Rebecca Smith, daughter of William Smith, provost of University of Pennsylvania. She has been described as “a notable beauty and wit whose irrepressible remarks on her husbands ‘comical looks’ are borne out by his portrait in the office of the superintendent of the Capital in Washington.”

Blodget was a man of singular talents and, although not a professional architect, he designed the first Bank of the United States, in Philadelphia, one of the most notable buildings in the City.[6] It was the first in the United States to have a marble façade and was completed in 1795.[7] Blodget’s design was based on Thomas Cooley’s Exchange in Dublin, which he could have seen in an engraving or perhaps on an earlier European trip. Located on Third Street between Chestnut and Walnut it cost $110, 168.05 to build and was restored in 1976 for the bicentenary celebrations. It remains the oldest bank building in the United States and, with its pillared portico, is also America’s oldest surviving neo-classical style building.

In 1792 Blodget became interested in the new Federal Capital and commenced buying up Washington real estate. He began campaigning for funds to construct suitably grand administrative buildings, an ambition that found little support from the States. While in Boston to secure a loan for the erection of Federal buildings he learnt of the competition for the design of the Capital, advertised in the Nation’s newspapers in March 1792. His plan of a building with a tall dome and four Corinthian porticoes was modeled on the Maison Carrée and resembled most of the entries in its preference for neoclassical grandeur. Closing date for the competition [8] was July 15th, but Blodget’s entry was late. Nonetheless, the Commissioners of the Federal City in Philadelphia were sufficiently impressed to consider it at their meeting and asked Blodget to submit complete drawings. Unfortunately these have not survived. A letter survives from later that year in which Blodget informed the Commissioners of his success in executing an amphitheater two hundred and forty-nine feet in circumference, based on the Halle aux Blés in Paris and undertook to submit a model.

In the following year the Commissioners appointed him Superintendent of Buildings, the active representative of the Commissioners in the fledgling city. But after a year the position was abolished and Blodget was forced to employ his own financial resources in planning the new buildings. Hoping to raise money from the public he attempted to run lotteries for the sale of Washington real estate for which he put up his own property as security for the payment of prizes. The failure of this plan led to his bankruptcy and imprisonment for debt. After his imprisonment, “So completely did he drop out of public affairs that his death in a Baltimore hospital on April 11, 1814 received no notice in the Washington papers.”[9] While still in jail he solicited funds for a national university and, when he was released, this project became his main interest. At the time of his death he left a fund of $7,000 for this purpose.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Blodget, like Trumbull, came from a family that could claim to be established among the American gentry. Furthermore, both men, born just fourteen months apart, served as officers in the Revolutionary war but resigned early on to embark upon new careers. Both were men of multiple talents; Blodget’s own artistic skills evidently not the equal of Trumbull’s but nonetheless sufficient to earn him a major architectural commission. They also shared Federalist political ideals and in each case these beliefs were the source of conflict and problems in their later careers. Finally, they were both inspired by the Capitol building, the greatest individual architectural project ever embarked upon by the United States. While Trumbull’s contribution to this project may be admired today by every visitor to the Capitol and Blodget’s name is largely forgotten, had the latter’s plans been selected by the Commissioners their names would have been forever united.

NOTES

[1] Sizer records that Trumbull was paid a fee of fifteen guineas for Blodget’s portrait. Helen Cooper suggests that Blodget’s portrait may have been painted before Trumbull left for London, but that he took it with him to use in the Death of General Mercer. See Theodore Sizer, ed. The Autobiography of Colonel John Trumbull: Patriot-Artist, 1756-1843, New Haven, 1953.

[2] This measures 4 ½ x 2 7/8 inches and is on a similar scale to his painted miniatures

[3] Cooper, op. cit. pp. 63-72, cat. no. 14.

[4] Cooper, op.cit., p. 149, cat. no 101.

[5] He was descended from Samuel Blodget, born in 1633, whose father Thomas had immigrated to Boston in 1635.

[6] Chartered in 1791 by the US Congress at the urging of Alexander Hamilton and over the objections of Thomas Jefferson. Its original capital of $10,000,000 was raised by public subscription, with the government holding 20%. The debate over its constitutionality contributed to the evolution of the pro- and anti-bank factions, who became the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Such was the antagonism to the Bank that its charter could not be renewed for five years after its expiration in 1811. Nonetheless it proved a great success, funding the debt left over from the War and stabilizing a uniform national currency (replacing the volatile currencies issued by the States). When its charter again expired in 1836 it was not renewed and instead it received a new charter from the State of Pennsylvania as the Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania.

[7] Blodget was assisted in many of the technical aspects of this project by James Windrim, who went on to design other buildings in the city.

[8] The Judges (Washington, Jefferson, and the Commissioners of the District of Colombia) promised the successful architect a fee of $500 or a suitable medal, whichever he preferred. A runner up prize of $250, or a medal, was also promised.

[9] W.B. Bryan, History of the National Capital, I, 1914, which documents the principal events in Blodget’s life and career.
Acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Matthiesen Gallery, ‘Collectanea’, 1998