Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
Daniel La Motte
Thomas Sully (born Horncastle, England 1783-died Philadelphia, PA 1872)
1812-1813
- Medium
- oil on canvas mounted on wood
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 36 3/8 x 29 in. (92.3 x 73.8 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand La Motte III
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Wilmington, Delaware landowner and cotton merchant Daniel la Motte appears in the latest London fashion, his stylish clothes and relaxed demeanor reflecting the current style of portraiture popular in England and Europe. Artist Thomas Sully had just completed a sojourn to London and Paris, returning to Philadelphia prepared to paint sitters like La Motte as American aristocrats. His portrait of La Motte reflects American ambitions to be a great nation, aspiring to cultural parity with the Old World.
