; their work provides a glimpse of early colonial life. The rising mercantile class commissioned portraits as status symbols. Sitters posed in well-appointed interiors or landscapes in their finest clothes in order to document their property <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/p2.htm»,«p2»,«resizable=yes,width=210,height=305»)>, good taste, and sophistication.portraits of the next generation of American artists were similar in purpose, but technically more accomplished. Study abroad was often part of these artists « training. Gilbert Stuart <javascript:OpenBrWindow(»images/p3.htm«,»p3«,»resizable=yes,width=200,height=308«)> and John Singleton Copley were among those who traveled to Europe to study the work of the great masters and take instruction with eminent academicians. Stuart excelled at capturing the personality and psychological presence of his sitters. The theatrical British Grand Manner <javascript:OpenBrWindow(»images/p4.htm«,»p4«,»resizable=yes,width=230,height=270«)>portrait style was adopted by Copley and then popularized in America through work of Stuart and John Trumbull.the beginning of the Federal era, a market emerged for images of the young nation »s leaders. Gilbert Stuart painted more than one hundred portraits ofGeorge Washington <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/p5.htm»,«p5»,«resizable=yes,width=225,height=295»)>. American heroes were rarely portrayed with the pomp that surrounded European aristocracy. In keeping with the colonial values ??of self-determination, portraits instead referred to individual accomplishments or suggested the sitter «s symbolic importance to the nation. Rembrandt Peale »sportrait of his brother <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/p6.htm»,«p6»,«resizable=yes,width=230,height=295»)> documents Rubens « success with what was reputed to be the first geranium grown in America. The flowers were prized in Europe but difficult to cultivate in the United States. In this light, the work becomes not only an image of the artist »s brother, but a portrait of American self-sufficiency and achievement.served a documentary purpose for early Americans that is fulfilled by the camera today. Miniatures <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/p7.htm»,«p7»,«resizable=yes,width=230,height=295»)>, usually only a few inches high, were often the only visual record of loved ones separated by great distances. It was also common for people to commission a posthumous portrait, or mourning picture <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/p8.htm»,«p8»,«resizable=yes,width=230,height=305»)>, of a deceased child or other family member. Photography became more accessible during the mid-nineteenth century, leading to a decrease in the demand for painted portraits. Nevertheless, affluent sitters still took pleasure in proclaiming their material comforts with oil and canvas. Thomas Sully «s idealized, elegant images of Philadelphia society <javascript:OpenBrWindow(»images/p9.htm«,&ra...
