portrait / John Barry, 1801

Portrait in pastel of John Barry, based on Gilbert Stuart's oil portrait of 1801, signed with initials `M.H.B.' lower right; inscribed lower centre in pastel on artist's board measuring 38 by 30cm. COMMODORE JOHN BARRY After Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828). John Barry was born in Tacumshane, Co. Wexford, in 1745, and emigrated to the American colonies as a young man. Employed initially by a shipbuilding firm in Philadelphia, by the age of 21 he had gone to sea as captain of the ship Barbadoes. In 1775 he volunteered to join the Revolutionary navy and as captain of the Lexington and later the Raleigh and the Alliance he supported Washington's ground forces bringing food and ammunition, capturing several British naval ships in the process. In 1783 he fought and won the final naval battle of the American Revolution off the coast of Cape Canaveral. He died in Philadelphia in 1803. The present work is a pastel based on Gilbert Stuart's oil portrait of 1801, signed with initials `M.H.B.' lower right; inscribed lower centre in pastel on artist's board measuring 38 by 30cm. Provenance: R.J. Barry, New York Life Building, la Salle, Philadelphia; Private collection, Ireland;