Existing comment:
Men of Progress:
This watercolor was probably sketched by painter Christian Schussele to persuade Jordan L. Mott to finance his group portrait of American inventors, Men of Progress. The project was extensive -- and expensive. Life portraits had to be secured of each man, and a planned engraving added to the cost. The sketch shows that the artist originally included only seventeen figures. The final two, John Ericsson and Frederick Sickels -- squeezed in to the left of the central seated figure of Samuel F. B. Morse -- were added as afterthoughts as each rose to prominence. In the final painting, likenesses were sharpened, patent models added, details refined, and a portrait of Benjamin Franklin placed above all the sitters as a source of inspiration. But Schussele's graceful composition -- suggesting, as one commentator noted, a natural "convention or conversazione" among the assembled gentlemen -- remains intact, a fictitious but imaginative tribute to American ingenuity.
Christian Schussele, c 1859
Watercolor on paper |