Bass Otis (1784-1861), 1860

| self-portrait
| oil on tin
| 10 1/8 x 8 1/4 (25.72 x 20.96)
| inscribed, on verso: ‘Bass Otis/Painted by himself/Aged 76/ for F. J. Dreer, AD 1860’
| Gift of Charles Henry Taylor, Jr., 1928
| Weis 91

Ex. Coll.: Ferdinand Julius Dreer (1812-1902); sold at ‘F. J. Dreer’s Collection of Oil Portraits and Engravings,’ auction by Stan T. Henkels, June 6, 1913; purchased by Charles E. Goodspeed for $65; sold to donor.

Exhibitions:
1969, ‘A Society’s Chief Joys,’ Grolier Club, New York, no. 212.
1976, ‘Bass Otis: Painter, Portraitist and Engraver,’ Historical Society of Wilmington, Delaware, no. 80.

Publications:
Wayne Craven and Gainor B. Davis, Bass Otis: Painter, Portraitist and Engraver (Wilmington, Del.: Historical Society of Delaware, 1976), 112.
William Dunlap, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, 3 vols. (Boston: C. E. Goodspeed & Co., 1918), 2: 282.
Thomas Knoles, ‘The Notebook of Bass Otis: Philadelphia Portrait Painter,’ Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 103 (April 1993): 180.
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 37 (October 1913): frontispiece.
A Society’s Chief Joys (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1969), 104.

 

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