David Leavitt
ca. 1820-1825
Samuel Lovett Waldo
American, 1783-1861
American Art
These portraits were painted around the time that the sitters moved from New York to Brooklyn, where David Leavitt had an interest in the Brooklyn White Lead Company (later Dutch Boy Paint). One of his partners in this enterprise was the Brooklyn Museum’s founder, Augustus Graham. In this work, David Leavitt looks up from his newspaper, which signals involvement as a citizen in the larger world of business and politics.
Maria Leavitt, fashionably dressed and coiffed, is seated in a Neoclassical armchair before an open window. A generalized landscape view associates her with nature—a reference both to the sheltered lifestyle of a lady in society and to the heightened sensitivity then attributed to the female gender.
Maria Leavitt, fashionably dressed and coiffed, is seated in a Neoclassical armchair before an open window. A generalized landscape view associates her with nature—a reference both to the sheltered lifestyle of a lady in society and to the heightened sensitivity then attributed to the female gender.
- Maker/Artist
- Waldo, Samuel Lovett
- Classification
- Painting
- Formatted Medium
- Oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 33 1/16 x 25 9/16 in. (83.9 x 65 cm) frame: 42 9/16 x 35 1/16 x 4 1/2 in. (108.1 x 89.1 x 11.4 cm)
- Departments
- American Art
- Accession Number
- 1996.43.1
- Credit Line
- Gift of Anna S. Delafield, Fisher Howe, Lawrence Howe, and R. Warren Howe in memory of their brother, David Leavitt Howe (1915-1995)
- Exhibitions
- American Identities: A New Look, American Art
- Rights Statement
- No known copyright restrictions
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