Adams Papers
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To John Adams from Richard Varick, 21 July 1790

From Richard Varick

New York July 21st. 1790.

Sir

The Corporation of this City have applied to the President of the United States to permit Colo. John Trumbull take his Portrait to be placed in the City Hall, to which the President has consented & Mr. Trumbull has suggested to me that as the Portrait will be large the Room in the Hall in which those of the King and Queen of France are placed will be most eligible to perform the Painting in & that he will take Care that no Possible Injury or Inconvenience shall be occasioned by this Indulgence to him.

The whole of the Hall being devoted to the Use of Congress, I take the Liberty of thus Addressing You Sir, as well as the Speaker of the House of Representatives on the Subject & of soliciting your Permission, under a Persuasion that your respective Assent will be sufficient, without troubling the Senate or House of Representatives.1

I pray Your Answer on this Subject, & have the Honor to be with great Respect / Sir / Your Obedt. & very / Hble Servt.

Richd: Varick

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Honble. John Adams Esqr. / Vice President / of the United States.”

1New York mayor Richard Varick (1753–1831), former secretary to George Washington, guided the decoration of Federal Hall. JA and his congressional peers sat near copies of two full-length portraits, Antoine François Callet’s “Louis XVI in Coronation Robes” and Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s “Marie Antoinette in Ceremonial Dress.” The city council recruited Col. John Trumbull to produce additional artwork. For Trumbull’s portrait of Washington, see Descriptive List of Illustrations, No. 7, above (ANB description begins John A. Garraty, Mark C. Carnes, and Paul Betz, eds., American National Biography, New York, 1999–2002; 24 vols. plus supplement; rev. edn., www.anb.org. description ends ; Washington, Papers, Presidential Series description begins The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series, ed. W. W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Jack D. Warren, Mark A. Mastromarino, Robert F. Haggard, Christine S. Patrick, John C. Pinheiro, David R. Hoth, and others, Charlottesville, Va., 1987–. description ends , 6:103; T. Lawrence Larkin, “A ‘Gift’ Strategically Solicited and Magnanimously Conferred: The American Congress, the French Monarchy, and the State Portraits of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette,” Winterthur Portfolio, 44:31, 49, 53–54 [Spring 2010]).

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