She thought John Quincy might be more interested in one of her lovely sisters. Thomas quotes a contemporary arbiter of female morality: “Girls should be taught to give up their opinions betimes, and not pertinaciously to carry on a dispute, even if they would know themselves to be in the right.” Throughout her life, she discounted herself after expressing an opinion, when likely she knew herself to be right. But these were not avenues for a woman in the late 18th century nor the 19th for that matter, born as she was in the former, and reaching her maturity in the latter. Born in our own time, given her interests, she might have become an author like Thomas, a scholar, a judge, a therapist. With money from her father, she did not buy new dresses but books, among them Milton’s Paradise Lost.īut thus a tension which suffused her life. As Thomas notes, they “listened to her, talked with her, recommended books for her to read, and treated the child with unusual respect.” In short, the couple fostered the strong intellect which defined her life. Following a fainting spell apparently in religious fervour – she was much influenced by the Catholic school she had attended in France – she was sent to live with family friends, Elizabeth Hewlett, another American transplanted to Britain, and her Anglican biblical scholar husband, John. She was born in Nantes, where her father was working as a buyer for a Maryland company, and at age six moved to England when he set up his business. Her direct gaze is “not at all the expression of a vain and vapid girl,” it is “intelligent, her smile small and assured. One of seven daughters of an English mother Catherine, Thomas recounts what John Quincy found when looking at Louisa, based on a portrait painted about the time they met: a young woman with skin the hue of the “milk-pink roses that she holds in her fingertips” and a face wreathed by curls. Joshua Johnson’s graceful home, precariously financed through his merchant trading business, was a drawing point for visiting Americans and independent thinkers. Thomas sets the scene for a first meeting in 1795 with a 28 year old John Quincy Adams, a smart and attractive, if unfashionably attired, young diplomat who came to call on Louisa’s American father. Thanks to Thomas’ fine prose and compassion for her subject, it is a story beautifully told and worth remembering. Louisa Thomas takes the story of an earlier Louisa (February 12, 1775-May 15, 1852), Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy, from historical footnote to compelling drama. Márcia Balisciano, was asked by The Grateful American Foundation website, to review Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. (130.8 x 100.6 cm.) Metadata Usage CC0 GUID Record ID saam_1950.6.Our Director, Dr. John Quincy Adams in the National Collection of Fine Arts, unpublished, 1969 Topic Landscape\water Performing arts\music\harp Portrait female See more items in Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection Department Painting and Sculpture Credit Line Smithsonian American Art Museum, Adams-Clement Collection, gift of Mary Louisa Adams Clement in memory of her mother, Louisa Catherine Adams Clement Data Source Smithsonian American Art Museum Object number 1950.6.5 Type Painting Restrictions
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