William Tilden Blodgett

John Quincy Adams Ward

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

William Tilden Blodgett (1823–1875), a prominent Manhattan entrepreneur and philanthropist, sat for his portrait bust in 1865. Blodgett appears with fashionable muttonchop sideburns and wavy hair, yet Ward coupled this realistic treatment with a classicizing bare-chested termination on a round socle. Both Ward and Blodgett were founding trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and worked together to acquire the paintings and sculptures that formed the nucleus of the Museum’s collection.

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