George Peter Alexander Healy
1813 - 1894
Thanks to the encouragement of Thomas Sully, G.P.A. Healy embarked on a career as a portrait painter while still in his teens. He traveled to Europe in 1834, but unlike most American artists, who went to Rome or Düsseldorf, he studied in Paris under Baron Gros. Healy's natural charm brought him many important patrons, including King Louis-Philippe of France, who commissioned Healy to paint a series of portraits of distinguished Americans for the official gallery in Versailles. After Louis-Philippe was overthrown in 1848, Healy turned again to America, settling in Chicago from 1855 to 1865. During this extraordinarily prolific decade, he produced more than five hundred portraits, including numerous official presidential images and, after the war began, those of military figures Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, George B. McClellan, and David Dixon Porter. Healy sat for this daguerreotype by Brady around 1850. Plentiful evidence suggests that Healy often turned to photographic images when creating his own portraits.

See Lewis Cass

Mathew Brady Studio Daguerreotype, circa 1850
14 x 10.8 cm (5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches) unframed;
16.5 x 13.7 cm (6 1/2 x 5 3/8 inches) matted
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.