Charles Loring Elliott

Launt Thompson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thompson’s mastery of naturalistic portraiture is evident in this posthumous bust of Charles Loring Elliott (1812-1868), a successful New York portrait and genre painter. Here facial features are portrayed with honesty—wrinkles, a crooked nose, and a mole on his forehead individualize Elliott’s likeness. Thompson and Elliott shared the distinction of being New York’s leading portraitists working in a realist vein, the former in marble and bronze, the latter in paint. Even if the painter did not sit for his portrait prior to his death in August 1868, the sculptor had access to visual aids such as photographs.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art