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Thomas Cole

by 1850
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 759
Thomas Cole (1801–1848) enjoyed the patronage of influential New Yorkers, including the merchant Jonathan Sturges, who owned this bust by 1850. After the painter’s untimely death, the city’s cultural elite moved quickly to eulogize him. This portrait, blending a highly realistic likeness with a conventional classicizing drape, was probably completed at that time. The striking resemblance to a daguerreotype of Cole by Mathew B. Brady, then on view at the photographer’s Broadway gallery, may be more than a coincidence. Brown would have looked to lifetime likenesses of Cole as an aid in modeling his own.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Thomas Cole
  • Artist: Henry Kirke Brown (American, Leyden, Massachusetts 1814–1886 Newburgh, New York)
  • Date: by 1850
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Marble
  • Dimensions: 28 x 18 x 12 in. (71.1 x 45.7 x 30.5 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift in memory of Jonathan Sturges by his children, 1895
  • Object Number: 95.8.1
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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