Portrait of William Cullen Bryant
This intimate portrait by renowned landscape painter Sanford Gifford portrays the poet and newspaper editor William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). Based on a carte-de-visite photograph, the composition captures Bryant’s contemplative expression, wrinkled skin, bushy eyebrows, and full white beard, evincing the subject’s age of 66 years old. Bryant’s nature-inspired poetry often evoked pleasure in the solitude found in the woods and is considered akin to the visual works of the Hudson River School landscape painters with whom he was friends.
Artwork Details
- Title:Portrait of William Cullen Bryant
- Artist:Sanford Robinson Gifford (Greenfield, New York 1823–1880 New York, New York)
- Date:1860
- Medium:Oil on canvas
- Dimensions:Sight: 8 × 6 in. (20.3 × 15.2 cm)
Framed: 12 × 10 in. (30.5 × 25.4 cm) - Credit Line:Gift of Laura Grey in memory of David Grey, 2025
- Object Number:2025.793
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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Person in photograph Sanford Robinson Gifford (Greenfield, New York 1823–1880 New York, New York)
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