Samuel Finley Breese Morse (New York/South Carolina, 1791-1872)

Portrait of William Post
Unsigned.
Oil on wood panel, 35 1/2 x 28 1/2 in., in an elaborate labeled gilt-gesso frame.
Condition: Some craquelure, minor losses to edges.

Provenance: Descended in the family of the sitter.

Note: William Post was a founder, with Samuel F.B. Morse and others, of the National Academy of Design in New York City, in 1826.

Samuel Morse was, among other things, the inventor of the telegraph and co-creator of Morse code, as well as a portraitist whose esteemed subjects included President John Adams and James Monroe. After traveling to France and meeting Louis Daguerre (of early photography fame), he helped to popularize the new medium of daguerreotype photography in the United States. One of Morse's photography students was famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady.

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