CHARLES LORING ELLIOTT (AUBURN 1812-1868 NEW YORK)
Portrait of the Artist
inscribed C. L. Elliott // 1836 (reverse)
oil on canvas
86.5 x 70.7 cm (34 1/7 x 27 3/4 in)

Elliott became known as one of the foremost portraitists active in New York during the nineteenth century. While trained in New York City under John Trumbull (1756-1843) and John Quidor (1801-1881), Elliott established his practice and reputation both in the city and in central New York state. So successful was his work, and so high the regard in which it was held, that Elliott was elected, in 1846, the National Academy of Design.

Our painting is likely to be Elliott’s earliest known self portrait, painted in the fresh, brushy style for which contemporaries praised him. Comparison can be made with Elliott’s later self-portrait of c. 1850 now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Acc. no. 87.19).