Francis William Edmonds 1841

Asher Brown Durand made this graphite drawing of Francis William Edmonds, though we are unsure of the date. Durand was a leading figure in the Hudson River School, a mid-19th century American art movement embodying the values of Romanticism. This portrait demonstrates that he moved within a social circle of artists and intellectuals in the United States. Edmonds himself was a painter associated with the Hudson River School. The drawing shows us how cultural capital operated in 19th century America. Here we see the exchange of artistic skill within a social circle. How artists valued each other’s work. To understand this drawing fully, one would want to study the biographies of both men, along with exhibition histories, patronage networks, and the publications of the time. It is through reconstructing the broader social and institutional context that we begin to grasp the meaning of art.