GILBERT STUART’S painting of Mrs. Richard Yates (1795), the wife of a New York merchant, is one of the most loved of American portraits. Stuart, highly successful in England and America, is most famous for his unfinished portrait of George Washington and his paintings of five other presidents, but none of his works is superior to this. The greatest portraits aim to show not just beauty or status, but character. On this level, Mrs. Richard Yates, peering up from her needlework, is a triumph. The artist Stan Washburn describes it at his art site:

It could be a portrait of a formidable New England matron I observed as a child, one Miss Twitchell (really), a person of vast sternness. She was obviously not the model for this painting, but body and soul it’s just how I remember her. She was a bank teller in Gorham, a small New Hampshire town. That bank was not, as banks are now, an open, welcoming institution. Upon entry you were confronted with a floor-to-ceiling wooden partition with a small, closely-barred window behind which lurked Miss Twitchell. One day a robber came in, stuck the muzzle of a pistol between the bars, and said, “Gimme the money.” “Won’t,” snapped Miss Twitchell, and dropped to the floor, out of sight. The bars were substantial, the door from the lobby to the rear area was locked; there was nothing the robber could do. He fled, empty-handed.

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