Collection Highlights
Elisha Kent Kane, M.D. (1820-1857)
Date:
1858
Object Number:
1859.1
Medium:
Oil on canvas
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Museum Collections
Luce Center
Thomas Ellison (1773-1820)
Object Number:
1942.322
Date:
ca. 1810
Medium:
Oil on wood panel
Dimensions:
Overall: 28 1/2 x 22 in. ( 72.4 x 55.9 cm )
Marks:
label: on back: "Col. Thomas Ellison / Son of Wm Ellison & Mary Floyd / Born Jan. 28, 1773 / Died Aug. 8, 1820 / Married Harriet Rumsey"
Gallery Label:
Col. Thomas Ellison was the son of William and Mary (Floyd) Ellison. He belonged to a prominent New York City and Orange County family and servied as an officer in the New York Militia. His portrait was a gift to the Society from his great-granddaughter.
This is one of the earliest portraits in which Jarvis experimented with an exceedingly loose brushwork in the background, barely suggesting the trunk, limb, and leaves of a tree at the right; the forms at the left defy identification.
Bibliography:
"Donations," The New-York Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 4, October 1942, pp. 103-6.
Dickson, Harold E., John Wesley Jarvis: American Painter, 1780-1840, New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1949, pp. 197-8, 348.
Catalogue of American Portraits in The New-York Historical Society, Vol. 2, New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1974, pp. 148-9.
Credit Line:
Bequest of Mrs. Emily Ellison Post, in memory of her parents, Charles Litchfield Ellison and Harriet E. (Morton) Ellison
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
