The Portrait of Archbishop John Carroll by Gilbert Stuart in the Georgetown University Art Collection is loaned to the National Portrait Gallery for the exhibition This New Man: A Discourse in Portraits celebrating the opening in 1968. Subsequently, the Portrait of Archbishop John Carroll by Gilbert Stuart was featured in the exhibition Anywhere So Long As There Be Freedom: Charles Carroll of Carrollton, His Family and His Maryland at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1975 and the retrospective exhibition Gilbert Stuart at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art from 2004 to 2005. This portrait now graces the President's Office at Georgetown University.

John Carroll (January 8, 1735 to December 3, 1815) was the founder of the American Catholic hierarchy, and first bishop and archbishop of Baltimore. Initially instructed by his mother, herself educated by the Sepulchrine nuns of Liège, Carroll would receive a Jesuit education and entered the Jesuit novitiate on September 8, 1754, taking his first vows in 1756. Ordained on February 14, 1761, he pursued his studies in philosophy and theology. He began teaching at the English College in Liège, and took his final vows on February 7, 1771.

The Continental Congress invited Carroll to accompany Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and his cousin Charles Carroll—the only Catholic who signed the Declaration of Independence and the first US Senator from Maryland—on their travels in Canada. A supporter of the American Revolution and its democratic principles, John Carroll advocated for the establishment of a vernacular liturgy, the popular election of bishops, and for “general and equal toleration” of religion.

When Pope Pius VI declared Baltimore as the first Catholic diocese in the new nation on November 6, 1789, he named John Carroll as the first Catholic Bishop. Despite his many administrative gifts, Archbishop Carroll labored toward his principal goal of establishing educational opportunities for the youth of the new nation. His efforts to establish Georgetown College began in 1786 as his Episcopal duties included the founding of other educational centers including St. Mary’s Seminary (1791), St. Mary’s College (1805), Mount St. Mary’s College and Seminary (1808). He encouraged the Dominican educational mission into Kentucky and Elizabeth Seton’s establishment of the American Sisters of Charity for the education of girls. In his pastoral letter of 1792, the first such document issued in the United States, there were proud references to "A school has been instituted at George-Town..."

For more information on the Portrait of Archbishop John Carroll go to http://www.library.georgetown.edu/special-collections/art

For a description of the circumstances of the commission of the Portrait of Archbishop John Carroll and the donation to Georgetown University, click here for the historic entry from “News of the Month” in the Georgetown College Journal dated July 1895.

Interested in learning more about the Georgetown University Art Collection? Go to http://www.library.georgetown.edu/special-collections/art

To learn more about Archbishop Carroll, go to

http://www.archbalt.org/about-us/the-archdiocese/our-history/people/carroll.cfm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03381b.htm

Gilbert Stuart (December 3, 1755 to July 9, 1828) was an American painter who gained renown for his portraits, especially those of George Washington. As with other American artists of his time, he travelled to the United Kingdom for training and inspiration. During his twelve-year sojourn in London (1775 to 1787), he worked initially in the studio of the American expatriate painter, Benjamin West, and eventually established his own identity as a painter of fashionable English and American clients. After a five-year residence in Dublin where he expanded his portraiture skills, he returned home to the newly formed United States in 1793 establishing himself first in New York. Sometime in late 1794 or early 1795, he relocated to Philadelphia where he began his famous portrait series of George Washington including the famed Lansdowne Portrait currently on view at the National Portrait Gallery.

He moved to Washington in December 1803 and found his portrait commissions in high demand. Among his sitters were Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, and of course, John Carroll. His 1805 visit to Boston transformed into his last relocation as he found not only a vast clientele but a supportive artistic community as the first generation of American artists—John Trumbull, William Dunlap, Thomas Sully, Washington Allston, John Vanderlyn, and Samuel F.B. Morse—commanded his attention. Upon Stuart’s death on July 9, 1828, this group of artists resolved that he be identified as “the father of American portraiture.”

For more information on Gilbert Stuart’s Portrait of John Carroll go to http://www.library.georgetown.edu/special-collections/art

To learn more about Gilbert Stuart, go to http://www.oxfordartonline.com/