Christian Gullager (1759-1826)

Christian Gullager (1759-1826)

Amandus Christian Gullager was born in 1759 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and later attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Although it is not known when the artist first arrived in America, a record of his marriage to Mary Selman places him in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1786. Gullager’s earliest American portraits are of Newburyport and other North Shore residents but by 1789, he had established himself in Boston, where he is listed in city directory as a portrait painter.  In that year, he painted a likeness of George Washington, undoubtedly his most important sitter, which is now in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.  By mid-1797, Gullager left Boston for New York, staying in the latter city for only a few months, since from 1798 to 1805 he is listed in the Philadelphia directories. However, from 1806 until his death in 1826, nary a mention of Christian Gullager is heard, aside from a decree from the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County in 1809, declaring that Mary Gullager be divorced from her husband. It is said that he showed up at his daughter’s home in 1825, was taken in and cared for, and passed away one morning in November of the following year.

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