Thomas Corcoran
Charles Peale Polk·c. 1802/1810
Historical Context
Charles Peale Polk's portrait of Thomas Corcoran, painted around 1802-1810, depicts a member of the Georgetown family that would later produce the banker and philanthropist William Wilson Corcoran. Polk, active in the Washington area, documented the leading families of the federal capital during its earliest years. His portraits provide visual records of the individuals who established the social and commercial life of the new national capital.
Technical Analysis
Polk's oil-on-canvas technique renders the sitter with characteristic American provincial directness. The careful modeling of facial features and the sober costume create a portrait of respectable middle-class identity appropriate to the early republic.
Provenance
By descent through the family of the sitter to his grand-daughter, Kate Thom Wood [Mrs. Thomas Newton Wood];[1] by inheritance to her daughter, Katherine Wood Dunlap [1884-1970, Mrs. Robert Henry Dunlap]; gift 1947 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art. [1] The sitter was a brother of William Wilson Corcoran, founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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