Thomas Sully (1783-1872)

Born in Horncastle, England, in 1783, Thomas Sully was one of at least nine children of actor parents who moved the whole family to America in 1792, eventually settling in Charleston, South Carolina. Largely self-taught, he began his career as a miniaturist in Norfolk and later Richmond, Virginia, from about 1801 to 1806, before moving to New York in the later part of that year. For the next several months, he resided in the city or in Hartford, Connecticut, and even made a trip to Boston where he “received the benefit of [Gilbert] Stuart’s advice.”[1] Sully finally settled in Philadelphia in December 1807 and established himself in the community by offering a discount to his first thirty portrait customers. He made a long-anticipated trip to London in 1809 to further his studies and, armed with a letter of introduction written by Charles Willson Peale, came under the tutelage of expatriate Benjamin West. With West’s advice and guidance, Sully made steady progress in his portrait work and returned to Philadelphia in 1810 where he began painting idealized, slightly theatrical portraits that were wildly successful. In his lifetime, Thomas Sully produced more than 2,000 portraits and became the leading American portrait painter of his generation.

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