Daniel Boardman
1789
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 207.4 x 140.4 cm (81 5/8 x 55 1/4 in.) framed: 228 x 160 x 10.2 cm (89 3/4 x 63 x 4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CAB
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mrs. W. Murray Crane
Accession Number
1948.8.1
Art Historical Context
**Daniel Boardman**, painted by Ralph Earl in 1789, is a striking oil-on-canvas portrait that captures the poised elegance of its sitter, a prominent New England merchant. At over eight feet tall, this monumental work exemplifies the grandeur of late 18th-century American portraiture, where large-scale canvases conveyed status and prosperity in the young republic. Earl, a key figure in early American painting, drew from British influences like those of Gainsborough while developing a distinctly Yankee realism, rendering fabrics, faces, and settings with meticulous detail. Completed just after...
About the Artist
Ralph Earl · 1751–1801
Ralph Earl (1751–1801) was born on May 11 in Shrewsbury or Leicester, Massachusetts, the eldest of four children to Ralph Earle, a colonel in the Revolutionary army, and Phebe Whittemore Earl. Growing up amid farmers and craftsmen in Worcester County, Earl displayed prodigious talent as a self-taught artist, emulating the works of John Singleton Copley after observing his half-brother Henry Pelham...