John Jay

Gilbert Stuart

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the knees up, a balding, pale-skinned man wearing a voluminous rust-red and black robe sits angled to our right in this vertical portrait painting. The man is clean-shaven, and tufts of ash-brown hair curls around his ears. He looks to our right with gray eyes under slender brows. The tip of his long nose comes to a prominent point, and his wide, thin, pale pink lips are closed. A white, ruffled ascot is tucked into the lapels of a red and black robe edged with silvery white. The fabric has a sheen, suggesting satin or silk. The man’s legs are crossed and covered with inky-black fabric. The man’s right hand, to our left, rests in his lap, and the other rests on the edge of a book propped upright on a table covered in a dusky, dark pink cloth. A muted copper-red curtain hangs to the left, and a column and its base is outlined against the parchment-brown wall behind him. The portrait is loosely painted with some visible strokes, especially in the costume and background.