Josef and Matilda de Jáudenes

Silver embroidery branches across Josef de Jáudenes’s dark coat; pale silk spreads over Matilda Stoughton de Jáudenes’s lap beneath a towering feathered headdress. Painted in 1794, these marriage portraits are among Gilbert Stuart ’s most elaborate displays of costume. Their brilliance belongs to a particular encounter: a Spanish diplomat and his American bride commissioned an artist recently returned from Britain and Ireland to represent their new union. ^[1]

The paintings also contain a second history. Coats of arms and inscriptions were added later, including a signature that falsely awarded Stuart the initials of a Royal Academician. Understanding the pair means looking both at the figures Stuart painted and at the claims subsequently written around them. ^[2]

Two paintings conceived as a pair

Josef and Matilda married in New York in the spring of 1794. Matilda was sixteen and had been born in the city; Josef was a Spanish official with experience of American diplomatic affairs. Carrie Rebora Barratt’s account connects the commission directly with their marriage. The portraits established them as individuals while giving their union a substantial, durable form. ^[12]

Such companion pictures are often called pendants. They share a scale and an occasion, and their poses invite comparison across the space between them. Here each sitter occupies an upholstered chair beside a table, with a curtain behind and objects close to the hands. Those shared elements make the paintings recognizable as a pair even before the identities are known.

The differences are equally deliberate. Josef’s papers, sword and walking stick belong to the presentation of a man with official standing. Matilda’s fan, little books and portrait miniature offer another set of attributes. Barratt places these choices within established portrait conventions, in which clothing and possessions helped explain a sitter’s position. The objects make the two figures complementary without making their roles identical. ^[12]

Stuart had returned to America in 1793 after years of painting in Britain and Ireland. The Met situates Josef’s portrait within the European Grand Manner: an elevated form of presentation using pose, setting and accessories to give a sitter importance. His clients could draw on that experience while commissioning pictures in New York. ^[3]

The scale matters. At approximately 129 centimetres high, these are substantial seated portraits, with room for hands, knees, furniture and generous passages of dress. The faces remain important, but the body and its surroundings carry much of the public message. A viewer encounters the couple through both their likenesses and the elaborate setting of their marriage.

Diplomacy and ambition in the new republic

Josef was born in Valencia and arrived in New York in May 1785. He and José Ignacio de Viar assisted Diego de Gardoqui, Spain’s first minister plenipotentiary to the United States. After Gardoqui returned to Spain in October 1790, the two assistants became joint chargés d’affaires ad interim and moved to Philadelphia. Their responsibilities placed them within relations between the new republic and an established European monarchy. ^[13]

Thomas Jefferson presented Josef to President Washington in July 1791. The questions in which the Spanish official was involved included Spanish Louisiana, navigation on the Mississippi and trade rights. These were matters of territory, commerce and access, giving diplomatic relationships immediate practical importance. Barratt records that unresolved disagreements led to negotiations being transferred to Madrid in 1795. ^[13]

Matilda’s family also belonged to this network. Her father, John Stoughton, known as Don Juan, was Spanish consul in Boston; her mother was Esther Fletcher. The marriage joined a Spanish official with an American woman whose family already had connections to Spanish service. That context helps explain the portraits’ international character without reducing the marriage to a single political calculation. ^[12]

Barratt interprets Josef’s patronage in relation to his ambition for a more permanent diplomatic appointment. The paintings certainly give extraordinary prominence to signs of standing. Yet they cannot tell us everything about the couple’s motives, and Matilda’s expression cannot establish whether she welcomed or resented her marriage. Her youth and the unequal public roles available to the sitters deserve attention without becoming a fictional account of their private lives. ^[13]

The connection with John Jay extends beyond political office. Through a contemporary description quoted in the catalogue, the couple appear at a party hosted by Mrs Jay. The commission belonged to a world in which diplomatic work, family connections and social appearances overlapped. Portraits could preserve the appearance a couple presented within that world. ^[14]

Josef’s public costume

Josef’s dark blue velvet coat opens over a scarlet waistcoat, with scarlet breeches continuing the strong colour below. Silver embroidery traces curling stems along the coat’s edges and across its broad cuffs. Bright buttons, white lace and pale stockings multiply the contrasts. The effect depends on the relationship between large colour areas and the smaller details that decorate their boundaries. ^[15]

The face is comparatively calm in colour and treatment. Its warm cheeks and softly modelled contours sit above a complicated arrangement of lace, collar and embroidery. Pale hair forms a compact shape against the dark background. The head supplies a recognizable individual within a costume designed to draw sustained attention.

One hand rests on papers on a green-covered table; the other lies at the sword hilt. The hands connect the sitter with two different kinds of attribute. Papers suggest official business, while the sword contributes to his formal appearance. Neither requires us to identify a particular document or to imagine a military episode taking place outside the picture.

The black hat and walking stick occupy the table’s edge, while books are visible farther back. These things extend the figure into a furnished environment. The green chair and curtain also provide a quieter colour against which the scarlet clothing stands out. Stuart makes a richly dressed body readable through the placement of contrasting surfaces.

Barratt describes the outfit as exceptionally aristocratic in its American setting. This is useful context for its visibility: the painter was representing clothing that already distinguished its wearer. The costume was part of the appearance Josef brought into public life, rather than evidence that the artist invented an imaginary rank for him. ^[15]

The later writing on the canvas makes more explicit claims about his identity and office. It needs to be read separately from the original arrangement of face, hands and dress. The portrait’s visual language had already established formality before those words were added.

Matilda’s dress and representation

Matilda’s pale gown spreads across the lower canvas, its folds broken by small gold-coloured motifs. The fitted sleeves and gathered waist lead the eye towards her hands, which hold a closed fan. Above, jewellery, pale hair and an elaborate headdress create a second concentration of detail. The costume occupies much more space than the face, making the act of dressing central to her representation.

Barratt identifies silks, diamonds and seed pearls, along with ornamental hairpins and a coronet-shaped headdress. She describes the ensemble as English fashion elaborated for distinction, rather than simply Spanish dress. That distinction is especially useful for a portrait whose sitter’s marriage crossed national boundaries: clothing could communicate international fashion without functioning as a straightforward national label. ^[16]

The headdress rises far above Matilda’s head, with sweeping feathers set against the dark curtain. Its crown-like shape contributes to the display, but does not make her a royal sitter. Jewellery similarly establishes visible richness without allowing every stone or ornament to be identified from appearance alone. Barratt’s costume descriptions help distinguish documented materials from the impression of brightness created by paint. ^[16]

The small portrait miniature, fan and books place personal and cultural objects around her. The miniature introduces another likeness into the composition, on a scale suited to intimate possession. Its presence is meaningful even without a secure identification of its subject. The two books on the table likewise remain objects within her presentation; their painted covers do not justify inventing titles or reconstructing her reading habits.

Contemporary comments suggest that the couple’s appearance attracted notice outside the studio. Margaret Manigault described them at Mrs Jay’s party as “as fine as little dolls”; a guest at a later dinner given by Washington called Matilda “brilliant with diamonds.” These brief remarks are quoted through the catalogue, rather than taken from independently examined letters. They record observers’ responses to fashionable display, not an explanation of Matilda’s inner life. ^[14]

Comparison with Stuart’s Catherine Brass Yates makes the choices here particularly apparent. Matilda’s fan, expansive dress and headdress organize attention around ceremonial appearance. Different accessories and a different scale of costume could give a woman’s likeness a very different emphasis. The value of the comparison lies in recognizing those choices, rather than assuming that one portrait reveals a sitter’s character more completely.

How the pair works visually

The sitters’ heads turn in complementary directions, while their seated bodies establish related diagonals. Both portraits allow the face to emerge above a richly described costume. Shared proportions and the placement of hands make the pair coherent, while the contrast between Josef’s dark coat and Matilda’s pale dress gives each canvas its own character.

Colour links the settings as well as the figures. Matilda sits against red upholstery beside a red-covered table, with warm drapery behind. Josef’s scarlet garments meet the cooler green of his chair, table covering and curtain. Across the pair, red and green move between clothing and furnishings. The relationship is more varied than two figures placed against an identical background.

Their accessories also establish different rhythms. Josef’s papers spread across a horizontal surface, while the sword makes a strong descending diagonal. Matilda’s fan lies across both hands, and the broad skirt gathers the composition below it. Her headdress then extends the figure upward. Each picture gives the viewer routes between face, hands and the outward signs of standing.

Barratt suggests that Stuart painted the costumes rapidly, probably after establishing the heads and without requiring the sitters to remain for all the work. This is an interpretation of his practice, rather than a surviving timetable for these sittings. It helps explain why the apparently meticulous clothing can coexist with broad, economical passages in the backgrounds. ^[17]

The style and technique of Stuart’s portraits depend partly on this ability to vary attention. Here light details on dark fabric demand a different handling from the large pale folds of Matilda’s skirt. The paintings invite comparison between those effects while keeping the faces at a relatively similar scale.

The paintings’ complementary design invites a viewer to look from one figure to the other. Their exact original hanging arrangement remains unrecorded. The relationship between them nevertheless survives through scale, pose and occasion, making each picture more informative when considered beside its companion.

Later coats of arms and false credentials

The coats of arms occupy opposite upper corners, with Spanish inscriptions below. They identify the sitters and describe family and official connections. Lower down, the added signatures give Stuart’s name, the initials R.A., New York and a date of 8 September 1794. Those inscriptions are part of the paintings’ subsequent history, rather than reliable signatures written by Stuart. ^[18]

The distinction affects several apparently simple questions. The paintings are dated 1794 in the Met’s records, but the later inscription cannot authenticate a precise day of completion. Nor do the initials prove that Stuart was a Royal Academician: he never held that status. The additions gave the pictures a form of institutional prestige to which their painter was not entitled. ^[2]

The Met’s current account of Matilda’s portrait attributes the arms and writing to another hand, probably after the couple returned to Spain in 1796. Its wording preserves an important degree of uncertainty about timing. Barratt discusses additions on both pictures, interpreting their combined national and institutional claims in relation to Josef’s aspirations. The identity and exact circumstances of the person who painted them are not established by that account. ^{[4] [18]}

The additions change the balance between visual representation and written identification. The original clothing and furnishings offered signs a viewer could interpret; the later text supplied explicit names, offices and credentials. Seen together, those layers show how owners could strengthen or redirect the public identity of a portrait after the artist’s work was finished.

Barratt also records an early question about whether the paintings were copies, raised around their acquisition in 1907. That historical doubt is known here through her catalogue note. It should not be confused with the present museum attribution, which identifies both canvases as works by Stuart. False added signatures and an early attribution debate are distinct issues; neither warrants treating the whole pair as modern fabrications. ^[19]

Washington portraits and the collection history

Josef’s interest in portraiture extended to the president. In Stuart’s subscription list dated 20 April 1795, reproduced in the 2004 catalogue, his name appears second with an order for five Washington portraits. The entry records an ambitious commission, but it does not by itself establish that five paintings were completed, delivered or sent to particular recipients. ^[20]

That distinction matters because Stuart’s Washington portraits circulated in numerous versions. The National Gallery of Art’s Vaughan portrait , dated 1795, offers a comparison with the kind of presidential image being developed during this period. Its black coat, white neckcloth and restrained background differ sharply from the Jáudenes pair’s elaborate dress. It is illustrated as context, without being identified as one of Josef’s five orders. ^[21]

Josef also commissioned a separate Washington portrait from Joseph Perovani. The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando identifies its canvas as Perovani’s work of 1796, measuring 220 × 145 centimetres, and associates the commission with Jáudenes and Manuel Godoy. The painting entered the Academy in 1816 from Godoy’s collection. It belongs to another artist and commission, rather than serving as a surviving example of Stuart’s five subscriptions. Its history places presidential portraiture within the diplomatic exchange of images between America and Spain. ^[22]

Josef’s hoped-for permanent appointment did not materialize. Barratt records his resignation on 25 April 1796 and departure for Spain on 24 July, taking the marriage portraits with him. Their journey gives the pair a history beyond the American rooms in which the sitters had made their appearance. The paintings carried their likenesses and formal presentation into a different setting. ^[23]

Both eventually entered the Met through the Rogers Fund in 1907, where they retain separate accession numbers. Their shared acquisition allows the couple’s portraits to be studied together while preserving the individuality of each object. ^{[3] [4]} Looking between them reveals the coordination of costume, pose and possessions through which Stuart presented a marriage. Looking at their later inscriptions reveals a further effort to define how that marriage, and its painter, should be remembered.