Daniel Webster Addressing the United States Senate
Medium
Classification
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Marvin Sadik
Accession Number
NPG.80.226
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the grand tradition of 19th-century American portraiture, Elipet M. Brown, Jr.'s 1860 print *Daniel Webster Addressing the United States Senate* immortalizes one of the nation's most eloquent statesmen. Created as a detailed reproductive print—likely after an earlier painting—this work depicts Webster at the Senate podium in a neoclassical legislative chamber, gesturing passionately amid quills, books, draped fabrics, and symbolic motifs like an eagle and escutcheon. Eyeglasses perched on his nose and a lawyerly gravitas underscore his role as orator and chancellor, with architectural colum...