Rufus King

@ National Portrait Gallery

Description

Rufus King was one of the last of the Founding Fathers. A delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, an active framer of the Constitution, minister to Great Britain, opponent of the War of 1812, senator from New York, and the Federalist Party's last candidate for the presidency (overwhelmingly defeated by James Monroe in 1816), King had a public career that extended through the administrations of the first six presidents of the United States. His portrait was painted in 1819-20, a time when he tried to rouse opposition to the admission of Missouri as a slave state, defending before the Senate "the natural liberty of man and its incompatibility with slavery in any shape." John Quincy Adams recorded: "He spoke with great power, and the great slaveholders . . . gnawed their lips and clenched their fists as they heard him."Frederick Gore King, [descendant of sitter], 1926; sold to Herbert Lee Pratt, New York; his granddaughter Edith Gibb McLane [Mrs. Edith G. Dillon], Annapolis, Md.; purchased 1988 NPG

Type:

Image

Format:

Oil On Panel

Rights:

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; this acquisition was made possible by a generous contribution from the James Smithson Society

Rufus King

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