Thomas Sully’s Philadelphians: Painting the Athens of America

Drawing upon wide research, including previously unpublished archival material, Peter Conn brings to life the men and women who formed the history of early national Philadelphia in his new book Thomas Sully’s Philadelphians: Painting the Athens of America. Sully is widely regarded as perhaps the most important portrait painter of the antebellum years. Dr. Conn explores his portraits as visual documents of the people, institutions, and events that made Philadelphia, from the Revolution until the 1840s, both the most cosmopolitan and racially embattled city in America.