Beauty's Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America

Beauty’s Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America looks at the popular revival of portraiture in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when both the established elite and the newly wealthy sought out artists who could highlight their social standing and personal affluence. 

Beauty’s Legacy contains works by artists such as Gilbert Stuart, Rembrandt Peale, John Singer Sargent, Eastman Johnson, and William Adolphe Bouguereau. It features portraits of members of socially prominent families such as Washington, Bonaparte, Livingston, Vanderbilt, and Astor.

Image: George Peter Alexander Healy, (American, 1813 - 1894), Jeannette Ovington (1863-1926), 1887, Oil on canvas, 20 3/8 × 26 3/4 in. Gift of the Estate of Ina Love Thursby, through Walter M. Brown. 

This exhibition has been organized by the New-York Historical Society.