"Old Pat," The Independent Beggar
Medium
oil on wood
Dimensions
unframed: 47.8 × 36.9 cm · framed: 68 × 57 × 7 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
American Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of J. H. Wade
Accession Number
1916.998
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
About this artwork
With this study of a disheveled person—perhaps a man named Patrick MacGregor—the popular society portraitist Samuel Waldo challenged assumptions that successful New Yorkers may have made about their city's prosperity. Waldo sold many copies of an engraving portraying "Old Pat" and made a finished portrait of him called The Beggar's Dessert that included a meager bone and bowl as attributes. In this painting, the sitter's gaunt, careworn features suggest considering him in sympathetic terms, yet ...