INSCRIPTION:
Ann the widow of Elbridge Gerry Vice President of the U.S. His name is immortalized on the Declaration of the Country Independence; hers in the transcendent virtues of domestic life both are embalmed in the veneration of their children.

Portrait of Ann Thompson Gerry

One of two framed portraits. Oil on canvas, expertly conserved. Each 24 x 19 1/2 inches, in matching period gilt frames. A charming pair of portraits of Elbridge Gerry and his wife, Ann Thompson Gerry, after the originals by John Vanderlyn. The image of Gerry is the best-known portrait of him, and exists in several copies by unknown artists, as here, besides the original. It shows a bust-length image, his arms crossed, looking intently at the viewer. Elbridge Gerry can rightly claim to be one of the foremost Founding Fathers. Born into a merchant family in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1744, his radical politics led him to become active in the Committees of Correspondence and a wanted man at the time of Lexington and Concord. He was elected to the Second Continental Congress, and was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, serving in Congress until 1785. He played an important role in the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but refused to sign because of the lack of a Bill of Rights. He was a prime mover for one in the First Congress, where he served as a Representative. He later served as an ambassador to France under John Adams, and governor of Massachusetts, where his manipulation of voting districts led to the term "gerrymander," for which he is probably best known today. In 1812, although already ill, he was elected vice president on Madison's second ticket. He died in Washington in 1814. Gerry did not marry until he was forty-one, and then to the much younger Ann Thompson, who was twenty-two. Her portrait shows her in a bust-length view, and captures her personality; it was said "she possessed considerable force of character and a dignified and gentle manner." She later has the melancholy distinction of being the last surviving widow of a Signer of the Declaration, dying in New Haven on March 17, 1849. She is buried in the Grove Street Cemetery, about two blocks from the offices of William Reese Company. George A. Billas, ELBRIDGE GERRY, FOUNDING FATHER AND REPUBLICAN STATESMAN (New York, 1976).

October 2014