Cora Livingston by Ingham, Charles Cromwell
This is "Cora Livingston," painted around 1833 by Charles Cromwell Ingham. She was the daughter of Robert Livingston, the statesman who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and, as minister to France, secured the Louisiana Purchase. Ingham pictures her in quiet, cultivated composure.
The painting asks you to notice two things: her direct, bright blue eyes, and her fingers resting on the acoustic guitar strings. The pose is relaxed, the guitar central. Together they signal a woman of status whose leisure included real musical engagement, not passive decoration.
Ingham was born in Dublin in 1786 and moved to New York, where he became a sought-after society portraitist. In 1825 he was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design, and for years he received a salary of about $400 annually to run their art school. This portrait survives as a representative work from the peak of his New York career.
A founding father's daughter, painted by a founding figure of American art education. The Louisiana Purchase reshaped a continent; $400 a year kept an art school open. Both facts sit inside this one quiet, dark-red portrait.
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Her name was Cora Livingston. Her father drafted the Louisiana Purchase. Her direct gaze holds the room. The painter was a founder of the National Academy of Design. He received $400 a year to run their school. Her fingers rest on the strings, ready to play.