Beschreibung:

American School 19th Century Portrait of a Gentleman and Portrait of a Lady: Two 19th Century Portrait of a Gentleman and Portrait of a Lady: Two Oil on canvas laid to masonite 36 1/4 x 28 1/4 inches These handsome unsigned portraits have traditionally been ascribed to the hand of John Wesley Jarvis one of the leading portrait painters in New York City in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the fine handling of the face and skin as well as the elegant brushwork would appear to support this attribution. Depicted in costume fashionable around 1834, these date from a period when Jarvis' career was beginning to pale in the face of active competition from other painters including Samuel F. B. Morse, Henry Inman and Samuel Lovett Waldo In the treatment of draperies and division of canvas, the paintings are also evocative of the work of Samuel F. B. Morse, who, like Jarvis, was highly regarded in New York City but traveled widely in search of portrait commissions. In 1834, Morse, a founder and president of the National Academy of Design, was appointed to the unpaid position of professor of sculpture and painting at the nascent University of the City of New York. Unable to support himself as a painter, he was already conducting experiments that soon led to his invention of the telegraph. Regardless of their authorship, these are soigne portraits of a dapper, urbane couple.
i. Gentleman: Frame rubbing. Laid to masonite; surface is quite flattened. ii. Lady: Frame rubbing. Laid to masonite; surface is quite flattened.