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Scarborough portrait, John C. Calhoun

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Scarborough portrait, John C. Calhoun (William Harrison Scarborough, Columbia, South Carolina, 1812-1871), oil on canvas, document verso states work was "Reproduced in the frontispiece of The Carolina Tribute to Calhoun, edited by J. P. Thomas, and A Parade of the Living Past opposite page 48, engraved by T. B. Welch", 30-1/4 x 25-1/8 in.; possibly original 19th century gilt wood and composition frame. Lined, crackle, 5 percent surface retouch primarily in jacket, abrasions left and top, paint drop accretion right edge. An important rediscovery, this life portrait of southern statesman John C. Calhoun stands as one of the most important works by Columbia, South Carolina painter William Scarborough. Calhoun, a native of South Carolina and a prominent force in national political history, is depicted just three years before his death in 1850. Scarborough was among the most distinguished 19th century southern artists, and painted many of Columbia's prominent citizens as well as those in surrounding cities and states. The minutes from the Clariosophic Literary Society, University of South Carolina, Columbia record the commissioning of the portrait. On March 6, 1847, on a motion of Edwin W. Siebels, "Mr. Barclay was first asked to paint the portrait of Calhoun, but later it was decided to ask Mr. Scarborough to paint it instead." Listed but not illustrated in the comprehensive 1937 exhibition catalog "William Harrison Scarborough, Portraitist and Miniaturist" by Helen Hennig (R. L. Bryan Co., Columbia), the painting was described as "Canvas, 24-1/2 x 29-1/2. Gray hair, white shirt, black coat and waistcoat and tie, grayish blue eyes, hair roached back, brown background and chair, red drapery" (See page 74). Hennig also notes that Scarborough was given permission to make a copy. Few records survive for the paintings in the Society, and the time of the deaccessioning of the painting is not known, but it is no longer in the collection, and was likely unlocated or deaccessioned by the time of the 1937 exhibition. It is not known whether Scarborough exercised his right to paint a copy of the work. The painting stayed in South Carolina, however, as the 1969 estate appraisal for Susie M. Abney of Harrietta Plantation in McClellanville, lists the painting in the dining room.

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