(Portrait Sketch of an Actor)
Object Details
- Date
- ca. 1830
- Artist
- Unidentified
- Sitter
- unidentified
- Luce Center Label
- This unfinished portrait captures the guile and wariness of an actor who very likely had to struggle for a living. America’s middle class in the nineteenth century regarded actors as little better than peddlers and cardsharps. Only a few, such as Edwin Booth and Fanny Kemble, managed to achieve a measure of respectability. The uncertain, appraising look in the man’s eyes undercuts the cocky assurance of his preposterous and tattered straw hat. In 1867 a critic for the Atlantic Monthly wrote: “It is an accepted dogma in dramatic art, that whatever is presented on the stage must necessarily be enlarged and exaggerated . . . [an actor] is apt to represent all shades and degrees of passion through . . . exaggerated tone, stride, and gesture.”
- Topic
- Portrait male
- Performing arts\theater
- See more items in
- Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture
- On View
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center, 3rd Floor, 15B
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center, 3rd Floor
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Object number
- 1977.132
- Type
- Painting
- Restrictions & Rights
- CC0
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 20 x 15 7/8 in. (50.9 x 40.4 cm.)
- Metadata Usage
- CC0
- Record ID
- saam_1977.132
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