Cornelius Allerton
Ammi Phillips (American, 1788–1865)
1821–22
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 83.8 × 69.9 cm (33 × 27 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- New York
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Gift of Robert Allerton
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
As the wealth and population of western New England increased, individuals wished to record their success by preserving their own or their family members' likenesses for posterity. With this increased demand, talented sign painters such as Ammi Phillips saw new opportunities. Phillips taught himself to be a limner—a painter of portraits. By 1811 he had learned painting techniques from other Connecticut limners, who executed full-length, three-quarter, and bust portraits on canvas, wood, and glass. Phillips began to use conventional poses adopted from European prints and became one of the most successful portraitists of the middle and upper classes in rural New England, plying his trade in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York.
Here Phillips depicted Dr. Cornelius Allerton seated in a painted chair against a somber, gray background. Although the sitter's face is relatively unmodeled, the artist's careful rendering of detail captures a sense of his individuality. The inclusion of a volume of Parr's Medical Dictionary conveys Allerton's profession, while a tiny horse in the distance may suggest his financial status. Itinerant painters such as Phillips were often commissioned to…
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
