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Charles Loring Elliott

Charles Loring Elliott
Artist
Mathew B. Brady, 1823? - 15 Jan 1896
Sitter
Charles Loring Elliott, 12 Oct 1812 - 25 Aug 1868
Date
c. 1850
Type
Photograph
Medium
Half-plate daguerreotype
Dimensions
Image/Sight: 10.8 × 7.6 cm (4 1/4 × 3")
Mat (brass): 13.3 × 10.2 cm (5 1/4 × 4")
Case open: 15.2 × 24.6 × 1.5 cm (6 × 9 11/16 × 9/16")
Case closed: 15.2 × 12.3 × 1.8 cm (6 × 4 13/16 × 11/16")
Topic
Interior
Costume\Dress Accessory\Neckwear\Tie
Personal Attribute\Facial Hair\Mustache
Personal Attribute\Facial Hair\Beard
Cased object
Charles Loring Elliott: Male
Charles Loring Elliott: Visual Arts\Artist\Painter
Charles Loring Elliott: Visual Arts\Artist\Portraitist
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; conservation made possible by a grant from the Smithsonian's Collections Care and Preservation Fund
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.89.55
Exhibition Label
Regarded by his contemporaries as one of the nation’s finest portraitists, Charles Loring Elliott painted more than seven hundred portraits representing many of mid-nineteenth-century America’s most prominent businessmen, political leaders, and cultural figures. Elliott “spoke enthusiastically of the Daguerreian art” and strove to match the clarity and detail of photographic images in his paintings. Not surprisingly, he often employed daguerreotypes—including those from the studio of his friend Mathew Brady—as the sources for his portraits.
A self-portrait that Elliott painted around 1850 bears a close resemblance to this Brady daguerreotype, which may have served as a study for that work.
En opinión de sus contemporáneos, Charles Loring Elliott fue uno de los mejores pintores retratistas del país. Pintó más de setecientos retratos en los que representó a muchos de los empresarios, políticos y figuras culturales más prominentes de Estados Unidos a mediados del siglo XIX. Elliott “hablaba con entusiasmo del arte del daguerrotipo” y en sus pinturas procuraba igualar la nitidez y los detalles de las imágenes fotográficas. No es de sorprender que a menudo usara daguerrotipos como fuente para sus obras, incluidos los del estudio de su amigo Mathew Brady. Un autorretrato pintado por Elliott hacia 1850 guarda una gran semejanza con este daguerrotipo de Brady, que quizás sirviera de base para la pintura.
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Location
Currently not on view