Thomas Sully was the dominant American portraitist throughout the first half of the 19th century. Born in England, he immigrated with his parents to Charleston, South Carolina when he was nine years old. He apprenticed with several prominent artists, including Gilbert Stuart. The “Englishness” of his approach, known for its suave brushwork and elegant simplicity, derived from his study abroad with the celebrated British artist Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1809-1810.

This portrait may have been commissioned by the sitter’s father, Anne-Louis de Tousard (1749-1817), as a visual reminder of the daughter he had given in marriage to the Philadelphia based merchant John Clement Stocker in 1808. Tousard, who fought in the American War of Independence under Lafayette, was a decorated General by the time he was sent to New Orleans as an emissary of the French government in 1805. We know from the artist’s records that the Stockers sat for him between May 5th and July 5th of that year. It seems likely that both portraits went to Tousard, as they were evidently conceived as a pendant pair. The portrait of John Stocker, now preserved in the Newark Museum, presents the banker in a casual pose of self-possession, attired as a fashionable dandy with high collar and long sideburns. He turns slightly to his left, as if responsive to his wife’s position turned slightly to her right. Europeanate styling is self-consciously proclaimed by Caroline’s Empire waisted shift and the ringlets cascading loosely to either side of her face, as well as the silk damask-covered chaise longue on which she sits. This attractive pair of portraits would have been a happy way of reminding Tousard of his daughter’s prosperous union, perhaps compensating for her distance from him in time and space.