Thomas Sully's Philadelphians : Painting the Athens of America.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Conn, Peter.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sully, Thomas, 1783-1872--Criticism and interpretation.

Sully, Thomas.

Philadelphia (Pa.)--Biography--Portraits.

Philadelphia (Pa.).

Philadelphia (Pa.)--History--19th century.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (0 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : American Philosophical Society, 2025.

Summary:

Philadelphia’s early national history represented in Thomas Sully’s portraitsThomas Sully is widely regarded as perhaps the most important portrait painter of the antebellum years. Using those portraits, Thomas Sully’s Philadelphians: Painting the Athens of America reconstructs many of the people, institutions, and events that combined to make Philadelphia, from the Revolution until the 1840s, at once the most cosmopolitan and most racially embattled city in America. The book approaches Sully’s portraits as visual documents in the history of Philadelphia in the first half of the nineteenth century.The faces of the men and women who appear in his portraits are alive with intelligence and personality. His best work has been summed up by Carol Soltis, of the Philadelphia Museum of Art: “luminous color, a dramatic or nuanced quality of light, a rich but refined handling of paint and description of form, tightly integrated compositions that underline a narrative or dramatic moment.”Gathered under headings that include individuals, institutions, professions, and contemporary events, Sully’s portraits offer points of entry into much that was going on in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Conn explores education, politics, theater, medicine, journalism, commerce, philanthropy, religion, and the fierce debate over slavery. In each case, Sully’s portraits bring to vivid life the men and women who were making the city’s antebellum history.Drawing upon wide research, including previously unpublished archival material, Thomas Sully’s Philadelphians brings to life the men and women who were making the history of early national Philadelphia.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. A Brief Biography

3. Pennsylvania Hospital

4. The Second Bank of the United States

5. The Theater

6. The Library Company of Philadelphia

7. The Jews of Philadelphia

8. The American Philosophical Society

9. Lafayette Returns to Philadelphia

10. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania

11. Natural History

12. The University of Pennsylvania

13. The Debate over Slavery

14. Epilogue: Thomas Sully and His Critics

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781606180501

1606180509

OCLC:

1456591047