"Old Pat," The Independent Beggar
1819
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
Artist
Samuel Lovett Waldo
Samuel Lovett Waldo (1783–1861) was an American artist, born in Windham.
See the richer artist page1819
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
"Old Pat," The Independent Beggar is a 1819 unspecified by Samuel Lovett Waldo, a American Folk Art work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This painting shows a thin older man in worn clothes sitting against a plain wall. His face is rough, his eyes tired. The light picks out his sharp bones and the worn spots on his coat. Waldo, a successful portrait painter, chose this man as his subject. He wanted people to notice the poor in fast-growing New York. The man may have been Patrick MacGregor, known as "Old Pat." Look up Samuel Lovett Waldo (American, 1783–1861).
With this study of a disheveled person—perhaps a man named Patrick MacGregor—the popular society portraitist Samuel Waldo challenged assumptions that successful New Yorkers may have made about their city's prosperity. Waldo sold many copies of an engraving portraying "Old Pat" and made a finished portrait of him called The Beggar's Dessert that included a meager bone and bowl as attributes. In this painting, the sitter's gaunt, careworn features suggest considering him in sympathetic terms, yet his forceful gaze presents him as someone who cannot easily be made into an object of pity.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Samuel Lovett Waldo (1783–1861) was an American artist, born in Windham.
See the richer artist pageYour cart is empty
Explore artworks →
