Gulian Verplanck

John Wesley Jarvis

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A devoted and influential member of many of the leading learned organizations of his day, Gulian Verplanck (1786-1870) was a member of one of New York's most prominent families, descended from the earliest settlers of New Amsterdam. Jarvis's choice of a horizontal format for his portrait of Verplanck was highly unusual and inspired: it captures the liberal spirit of this young man of wealth, leisure, and intelligence, who allowed the painter to experiment with conventional portrait composition in order to provide greater context for the likeness.

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