Stephen Van Rensselaer III
John Wesley Jarvis, 1780 - 14 Jan 1840
c. 1825-35
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Accession Number
NPG.2015.100
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
InteriorPortraitUniversityPatroonStephen Van Rensselaer III: MaleWar of 1812New YorkNew YorkPhilanthropist
About this artwork
A scion to one of New York’s richest families, Stephen Van Rensselaer was the eighth and last patroon of a vast estate between Rensselaer and Albany counties in upstate New York. At age twenty-one he inherited 1,200 square miles of land that he filled with tenant farmers, replicating a Dutch feudal pattern of land-ownership that his tenants challenged.