Sep 27, 2018 - Sale 2486

Sale 2486 - Lot 54

Price Realized: $ 3,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
(PAINTINGS.) Portrait of Secretary of State William H. Seward. Oil on board, 14 x 11 inches oval; a few paint splatters and later notations on verso. In its original gold gesso frame, 20 x 17 inches, restored in 2010 by Eli Wilner. Np, late 19th century
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

The pose is similar to the Thomas Hicks portrait of Seward held by Harvard, though Seward's rugged features are here smoothed considerably and he wears different clothes. The portrait is unsigned, but a later pencil notation on the verso of the painting reads "C.P. Healey", suggesting an attribution to the renowned portrait painter George Peter Alexander Healy (1813-1894). Healy is known to have painted a portrait of Seward, mentioned in the sketch of Healy in the 1894 book "America's Greatest Men and Women," page 160. We have not been able to trace any other extant Healy portrait of Seward. Provenance: purchased at a Tepper Galleries auction in the 1970s.