Luther Halsey

Period1824 - 1826

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions29.6 × 24.3 in. (75.2 × 61.7 cm)

ClassificationsPortraits

Credit LineGift of Dr. Joseph G. Halsey, 1937

Object number1006

DescriptionBald elderly man facing left, wearing a black suit with vest, white shirt, and white stock, against a brown background.
Curatorial RemarksThe longstanding attribution of this portrait to extraordinarily prolific folk artist Ammi Phillips (1788 - 1865) has been strengthened through research carried out in the late 1990s. During the fifty years he captured likenesses in western Massachusetts, Connecticut and the Hudson River Valley, his style changed markedly. The Halsey portrait falls into the “Realistic” period covering the years 1820 to 1828. Although unsigned, this work conforms to the artist’s style of that time period in its dramatic juxtaposition of light and dark areas of the canvas, subtly individualized facial features, smooth surface treatment, and a warm, velvety brown background. Phillips is known to have been in Orange County, NY, in 1824 and 1826. Nearby Newburgh, where Halsey appears to have been living, could also have been on the artist’s itinerary.NotesLuther Halsey (1758 - 1830) was born in Morristown, NJ, a son of Silas Halsey and Abigail Howell. He entered Princeton in 1775. But at the outbreak of the Revolution, he joined the militia of Morris County as a private. He served until the close of the war when he was brevetted Captain in 1783 by resolution of the U. S. Congress. Halsey became one of the original members of the Society of the Cincinnati. As a school teacher, he and his family moved frequently from New Jersey to several locations in New York State. Sometime after 1809, Halsey became principal of an academy in Newburgh, New York, where he may have lived out the remainder of his life. His name appears there in the census of 1820. He died at the age of seventy-one in Cincinnati, OH, while on a visit there. Halsey had married three sisters of the Foster family, by whom he had fifteen children. Luther Halsey was a staunch Presbyterian. His son, Job Foster Halsey, became a minister in that denomination after completing his studies at Princeton Seminary. His first ministry, from 1826 to 1828, was at Old Tennent Church near Freehold, hence a connection to Monmouth County. The donor was a great-grandson of the sitter.

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