Sketch for Portrait of a Seated Man

Daniel Huntington's pen sketch captures a gentleman seated with drawing implements in hand—palette and brush visible, suggesting either an artist-patron or fellow creative. The economical line work demonstrates Huntington's facility with rapid portraiture, a skill essential to the prolific American portraitist's practice. Working in the post-Civil War decades, Huntington maintained a major New York studio, executing hundreds of commissions from the country's cultural and industrial elite. This study, likely preliminary to a finished portrait, reveals the working methods behind the formal presentations that defined American artistic life during the Gilded Age.