A Definite Swagger

(New-York Historical Society)

by Robert Edward Bullock, Special to the Sun

In the period between the American Civil War and the outbreak of World War I the United States became a rich and powerful nation. "Beauty's Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America", opening Friday at The New-York Historical Society, examines the intense rejuvenation of portraiture in America during this pivotal point in more than sixty works in oil and watercolor, and two small bronzes.

The half-century that followed Reconstruction saw the nation wearied by carnage and destruction transform into an economic powerhouse, its national identity defined during a period of intense entrepreneurialism. Personal fortunes of "new money" came with prestige in the competitive environment of high society and fed a demand for portraiture which helped to both secure and advertise power, wealth, and virtue. Competition for commissions came from both sides of the Atlantic, with talents such as Sargent, Beckwith, Bouguereau, Rembrandt Peal, and Gilbert Stuart all answering the call.

The exhibit ranges from the modern sensibility and dash of Anders Zorn's "Samuel Untermyer" (1901) to the sweet charm and intimacy of Lilly Martin Spencer's "Robert Green Ingersoll with His Grandchildren" (1898), to the assured authority and measured gaze of "The Right Reverend Henry Codman Potter" (1887) by Eastman Johnson .....

(read the full review at The New York Sun)

^ Théobald Chartran, "James Hazen Hyde", 1901  (New-York Historical Society)

^ Eastman Johnson, "The Right Reverend Henry Codman Potter", 1887 (New-York Historical Society)

^ Fernand Paillet, "Mrs Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte", 1892 (NewYork Historical Society)