Ralph E.W Earl (after)

Lithograph by Bufford. Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage. Boston: Pendleton's Lithography, [1832]

Lithographed portrait (image size (including text): 483 x 394 mm; sheet size: 603 x 489 mm).

An elegant portrait of President Andrew Jackson at home in Tennessee

This handsome lithographic portrait of President Andrew Jackson, after a painting by Ralph E.W. Earl, was created in 1832, as Jackson ran for re-election. The image shows him on the grounds of his Tennessee estate, the Hermitage. He leans against a cane and holds his signature white beaver hat in his right hand, while looking off to his left. Wearing glasses, an overcoat and elegant suit, he is every bit the confident statesman. Jackson, in this image, has clearly outgrown his rough-hewn, back country roots. His estate can be seen in the background.

Jackson was so popular a leader that he made the English-born, Connecticut-bred Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl (son of the Revolutionary era painter) his "court painter" to meet the demands for his portrait. "During Jackson's eight years in the White House, Earl painted more than two dozen portraits of the President. The variety of sizes, settings, and poses in Earl's canvases was seemingly endless and the demand seemingly insatiable" (Barber). Called "the King's painter," Earl began painting Andrew Jackson in 1817, in the wake of his military heroics; moved into the White House with him in 1829, and continued until Earl's death in 1838. Barber calls this portrait by Earl, originally painted in 1830, the "best of Jackson up to that time." Its publication as a print was facilitated by George Bates of Boston, an admirer of Jackson's, and it was drawn on stone by John Henry Bufford, an apprentice in the shop of William S. Pendleton, the proprietor of Boston's first successful lithography firm.