The Student

A portrait of Rosalie Kemble Sully (1818–1847), the artist’s daughter, this picture is named in a register kept by Sully. It was begun on November 23, 1839 and completed on November 30. Sully valued it at $200. Although the register indicates that the picture was intended for Edward L. Carey, a Philadelphia publisher and art collector, the portrait remained in the artist's hands at the time of his death. It is unclear whether Carey ever had possession of it. Sully painted several replicas of this picture. One (Raleigh, North Carolina art market, 1969) was dated 1848 and is listed in Sully’s register as "The Student." It has been incorrectly identified as a portrait of the artist's daughter, Jane Sully. Another, listed in Sully’s register for 1871, formerly belonged to Mrs. Alfred Sully, Brooklyn. The portrait closely resembles a 1779 portrait of George Morland as an art student, painted by his father, the English artist Henry Robert Morland (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven). Both subjects emerge from deep shadows in accordance with the late eighteenth-century English fashion for lamplit portraits.