| History: | The Portrait Collection consists primarily of portraits of people associated with Harvard University: presidents, deans, administrators, faculty, benefactors and illustrious alumni. Although the origins of the University's portrait collection may be traced back to payment in the treasurer's records of 1680 for a portrait of William Ames, the entire collection was destroyed in the fire that burned Harvard Hall in 1764. The oldest extant paintings in the collection date from the years immediately after the fire when the colonial portrait painter, John Singleton Copley, was commissioned to paint full-length portraits of the benefactors who endowed the first professorships: Thomas Hollis, Thomas Hancock and Nicholas Boylston.
From this small group the collection has grown, through gifts as well as commissions, to include more than 2,000 paintings and sculptures. The collection has particular strengths in American colonial painting, and nineteenth century American sculpture. Artists include Robert Feke, Joseph Badger, John Singleton Copley, Joseph Blackburn, John Greenwood, John Trumbull, Gilbert Stuart, Edward Savage, Mather Brown, Bass Otis, Samuel F.B. Morse, Chester Harding, Alvan Fisher, Asher Brown Durand, Hiram Powers, Horatio Greenough, William Page, Jane Stuart, George Peter Alexander Healy, Daniel Huntington, William Wetmore Story, Anne Whitney, Eastman Johnson, William Morris Hunt, Louisa Lander, Edmonia Lewis, Sarah Wyman Whitman, Anna Lea Merritt, Martin Milmore, Frederic Porter Vinton, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Lilla Cabot Perry, Frank Duveneck, Daniel Chester French, John White Alexander, John Singer Sargent, Joseph DeCamp, Cyrus Dallin, Edmund Tarbell, Frank Weston Benson, Robert Henri, Charles Sydney Hopkinson, Ellen Emmet Rand, Walker Hancock, Polly Thayer, Gardner Cox
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