(From Sketchbook) 1810 - 1820

This undated sketchbook page is by Thomas Sully, an artist active in the late 18th and early to mid-19th century. The period was a pivotal time in American history, marked by westward expansion and the rise of a distinct national identity, as well as the deepening divide that would lead to the Civil War. Sully, celebrated as a portrait painter, captured the likenesses of the era's elite, but here we find something more intimate: a glimpse into his artistic process. Sully’s sketches portray images of fashionable women, and a man playing tennis, perhaps capturing a moment of leisure amongst the privileged class, which prompts a reflection on the lives and labor that made such leisure possible. These sketches exist divorced from the historical narrative, absent of the voices and experiences of those often marginalized. The emotional undercurrent here speaks to art’s complicated relationship to identity. It asks us to consider whose stories are told, whose are left out, and how we engage with these visual fragments of history.