AFA Winter 2017

Antiques & Fine Art 83 2017 P ortraiture was the dominant form of American painting in the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. At first, the cost and limited availability of artists, most of them born abroad and influenced by English artistic trends, restricted painted likenesses to the upper class. To this small group, portraits were an expression of self-worth that reinforced or suggested wealth and social position. In the years after the American Revolution, an increasingly aff luent and status- conscious middle class demanded access to material goods. This new rank of Americans used the portrait to express their pride in societal and economic accomplishments and their likenesses became a reflection of their own self-image. Increased desire for such portrayals led to an extraordinarily productive period between 1820 and 1840 for artists, many of whom were born in this country. While elite academic artists focused on landscape and historical painting driven by English and European aesthetics, the majority of nineteenth-century painters in this country produced portraits in response to consumer demand. In an era before photography, portraiture served as the only means to capture a visual record of a person. They were important documents at a time when family units were vital to social and economic survival, especially during a period when mortality rates were high. Portraits also served as an expression of worldly status, and they filled the emotional need of sentimental remembrance. Fig. 2: Cephas Thompson (1775–1856), Portrait of Anne McClelland McCauley Walke Williamson, Norfolk, Va., 1811–1812. Oil on mahogany panel, 15 ⁄ x 12¼ inches. Museum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund (2007-90).