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Old Pat, the Independent Beggar

ca. 1819
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 774
Old Pat (probably Patrick MacGregor) was once a well-known street character in New York. Waldo painted several portraits of him, the most finished of which is signed and dated 1819 (Athenaeum Gallery, Boston). This portrait may have served as a study for the Boston picture. The surface of the wood panel was given a texture to imitate twilled canvas. Another portrait of this sitter, attributed to John Wesley Jarvis, is in the Cleveland Museum of Art. The work, with its painterly brush strokes indebted to Sir Thomas Lawrence, was the first engraved directly from a painting by Asher B. Durand.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Old Pat, the Independent Beggar
  • Artist: Samuel Lovett Waldo (1783–1861)
  • Date: ca. 1819
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on wood
  • Dimensions: 19 7/8 x 14 3/4 in. (50.5 x 37.5 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Samuel P. Avery, 1904
  • Object Number: 04.29.3
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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