Power in Portraiture: Mother Catherine Spalding of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth

Abstract

Power in Portraiture:Mother Catherine Spalding of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Mitchell Edward Oxford (bio) The motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, located on the outskirts of Bardstown, Kentucky, possesses an impressive archive befitting its proud tradition. Founded in 1812, only a few years after Bardstown was made the see for the country's first Catholic diocese west of the Alleghenies, the community quickly grew in size and reputation. Established with a mission to educate young girls, the sisters soon extended their ministry to encompass care for the sick and orphaned. They also expanded north to Louisville, the region's bustling, riverine hub. The chief architect of this growth was Mother Catherine Spalding. Born in 1793 to a middling Maryland family that had joined the westward stream of Catholic migrants to the American "Holy Land" centered on Bardstown, Catherine Spalding was elected the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth's first superior at age nineteen and held the role almost continuously until her death in 1858. Owing to her significance to the community, and to Catholic institutions throughout the Ohio River Valley, the archives at Nazareth possess a wealth of material relating to Mother Catherine. Perhaps the most extraordinary of these objects is the striking large-scale portrait featured on the cover of this issue. Her portrait offers us a window into how American women religious navigated the delicate politics of religion and gender in the early republic. 1 [End Page 93] We're in a remarkable moment when the wider scholarly community is coming to recognize the significance of Catholic women religious like Mother Spalding to the course of early American history, even for archetypally Anglo-Protestant spaces and narratives. Recently, Catherine O'Donnell's biography of Elizabeth Ann Seton and Ann Little's Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright have each demonstrated the importance of formidable mothers superior not just to the story of American Catholicism, but to early America as a whole. 2 Fittingly, the covers of these works are graced with iconic images of their subjects. Seton's irenic right profile and Wheelwright's compelling forward gaze each seem to capture something of their character. Nearly all surviving depictions of early American women religious were either painted by skilled amateurs, like that of Esther Wheelwright by an unknown fellow Ursuline nun—or, like Seton's profile, created post-mortem from earlier likenesses and descriptions. This absence of professional portraiture contrasted with the practice of leading American Catholic churchmen—Bishop (and later Archbishop) John Carroll of Baltimore, for example, sat for the renowned artist Gilbert Stuart around 1804. And it also differed from the vibrant tradition of commissioned portraits of prominent women religious in the Catholic societies of early modern Europe. 3 This dearth of formal portraiture was seemingly due to widely held misgivings among clerical elites about the prudence of encouraging women religious to play active and visible roles in early North American [End Page 94] society. And so, while images produced after death might venerate the memory of a beloved mother superior to edify the faithful, commissioning a costly professional portrait in life would have held the more dubious implication of celebrating her elevated standing in society. 4 Such concerns were especially pronounced among the Catholic leaders of the overwhelmingly-Protestant early United States, who cautioned American sisters to guard against the trappings of worldliness. In 1828, for instance, Father John David, the chaplain to the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, objected to the sisters' describing themselves as "ladies" in their promotional material. Father David not only thought "the modest name of Religious persons" sufficient, he also griped that "women's minds were so weak that even a little appellation of this nature might open them to vanity." 5 The Politics of Material Culture at Nazareth Father David's preoccupation with female fallibility and vanity helps explain why Mother Catherine's portrait is so extraordinary. While its exact attribution remains a mystery, the painter's obvious skill suggests that Mother Catherine may have defied early American Catholic convention and sat for an accomplished artist. 6 The impressive technique of this unknown painter is best demonstrated in the subtlety of Mother Catherine's expression...