ELNATHAN HAXTUN

A prolific portraitist who worked in the border areas of New York and Connecticut, Ammi Phillips rendered likenesses in a number of distinct styles over the course of his long itinerant career. The boldness, sharp realism and sense of restraint of the portrait of Elnathan Haxtun exemplifies the traits seen in the artist’s work from the 1840s period, known as the “Daguerreotype Period” during which the photographic process gained wide popularity. The present work is less stylized and romanticized than those dated slightly earlier to the “Kent Period”. Based on the quick likeness and inscription, the present work was likely painted in the mid-1840s (David R. Allaway, My People: The Works of Ammi Phillips (2021), p. 10).

Elnathan Haxtun (1795-1862) was born in Beekman, Dutchess County, New York to William Elnathan Haxtun (1769-1847) and Ruth (Tibbits) Haxtun (1770-1831). He married Maria DeLong (1801-1860) on April 23, 1823. Together, they had two children Sarah E. Haxtun and William E. Haxtun, both of whom were also painted by Phillips. Here, Phillips paints Haxtun with William Wirt’s Sketch of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry (Philadephia, 1817), a biography of the Founding Father, famously known for his 1775 “Give me liberty, or give me death!” speech.