Louisa Adams

Born in London, Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams’s education at a convent school in France influenced her tactful approach to politics. Indeed, she went so far as to graciously host Andrew Jackson, one of her husband John Quincy Adams’s most difficult political foes. A talented harpist, Louisa Adams was exceptionally charismatic and loved to entertain. She was also a prolific writer, who used her position and political savvy to confront gender inequality in early American society. Adventures of a Nobody, begun around 1840, is one of the many autobiographical stories about her life.

This grand portrait, which captures Adams’s continental sophistication, was painted in London by Charles Robert Leslie. The sitting took place one  year after Adams completed a harrowing six-week winter journey by sleigh from St. Petersburg to Paris. Her headdress and empire waist evoke the five years that Adams spent at the court of Czar Alexander I while her husband served as President Madison’s minister to Russia.