Moses Pond 1832

George P. A. Healy painted this oil-on-canvas portrait of Moses Pond sometime in the 19th century. Pond’s severe dark coat, contrasted with his pale face and white cravat, sets him apart from the dark background and hints at his high status. A red curtain and gilded chair add to the sense of his wealth and importance. Healy was an American portrait painter, and this work exemplifies the kind of commissions that artists relied on for their livelihoods. In a society still finding its feet, portraiture offered a way for individuals to assert their place, and for the artist to make a living. Looking closer, we might ask what it meant for an artist to represent status and power in this period. What conventions were they drawing on? What did it mean to be a patron of the arts? Answering these questions requires us to investigate the social conditions that shaped artistic production in 19th-century America.