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Susan Walker Morse (The Muse)

ca. 1836–37
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 755
This full-length portrait of Susan Walker Morse (1819–1885), the eldest daughter of the artist, was painted in the years when he was developing the electric telegraph. Depicted around the age of seventeen, she sits in an imagined grand setting with a sketchbook in her lap and pencil in hand, her eyes raised in contemplation. Her Muse-like air prompted the canvas’s informal title. Here, Morse revealed the full extent of his European training, inspired by the art of Peter Paul Rubens and Paolo Veronese, in a lofty image that would become a farewell to his career as a portraitist. Impeded by a lack of commercial success, he ultimately abandoned art for science.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Susan Walker Morse (The Muse)
  • Artist: Samuel F. B. Morse (American, Charlestown, Massachusetts 1791–1872 New York)
  • Date: ca. 1836–37
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 73 3/4 x 57 5/8 in. (187.3 x 146.4 cm)
  • Credit Line: Bequest of Herbert L. Pratt, 1945
  • Object Number: 45.62.1
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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