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| Accession # | 1996.43.2 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Samuel Lovett Waldo |
| Title | Maria Clarissa Leavitt |
| Date | ca. 1820-1825 |
| Medium | Oil on panel |
| Dimensions | 33 3/16 x 25 1/2 in. (84.3 x 64.8 cm) frame: 42 11/16 x 36 x 4 1/2 in. (108.4 x 91.4 x 11.4 cm) |
| 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) |
| Location | Visible Storage: Case 15, Screen F (Paintings) |
Curatorial Remarks: 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.
