Mark Twain

This portrait depicts the popular American writer and humorist, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910), better known by his pseudonym Mark Twain. Painted in Hartford, Connecticut, where he settled in 1871, the portrait was done in the autumn of 1890. The sittings were described in 1912 by Albert Bigelow Paine, Twain's biographer, who helped the Museum acquire the painting. At this time, Twain and his wife could not pay for the portrait so it was returned to the artist and remained in his possession until his death in 1916. Twain did keep it in his hands at least for several years, however, and lent it in 1891 to the National Academy of Design's annual exhibition. In 1908, Flagg considered giving the portrait to the Museum and began to rework it, altering the left hand and the chair it rests on to make it "truer to nature."