Thomas Sully

Admired for his lively brushwork, Thomas Sully was the leading portrait painter in Philadelphia in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Historical subjects such as The Passage of the Delaware were rare in his oeuvre of well over two thousand portraits.

The Passage of the Delaware was commissioned by the state of North Carolina for the Senate Hall of the State House in Raleigh. According to the register of paintings that Sully kept, he began the painting on August 7, 1819, and finished it a little over four months later on December 15. Sully had suggested the subject, "the passage of the Delaware, preparatory to the battle of Princeton," to the governor of North Carolina. This event, a turning point for the American military during the Revolution, took place on Christmas night 1776.

Sully's painting was never hung in the State House. Although Sully had corresponded with the North Carolina governor regarding the dimensions of his canvas, he had already begun painting by the time he received a reply. The final composition was too large to fit in any of the spaces of the Senate Hall. Instead, shortly after its completion, the artist sold the painting to John Doggett, a Boston frame maker who also exhibited pictures. It was purchased from Doggett before 1841 by the Boston Museum-no relation to the Museum of Fine Arts, but rather a theater with a picture gallery located on Tremont Street-where it remained until 1903, when the owners gave it to the MFA.

This text was adapted from Davis, et al., "MFA Highlights: American Painting" (Boston, 2003).