His Excellency Oliver Wolcott, Governor of the State of Connecticut 1820

Asher Brown Durand made this engraving of His Excellency Oliver Wolcott, Governor of the State of Connecticut, sometime in the first half of the 19th century. The image reproduces a painting by Thomas Sully, and it was printed in New York. Durand’s engraving is part of a broader phenomenon of image making in the United States: the reproduction and distribution of portraits of leading political and military figures. These images served as a way of creating and consolidating national identity in a new republic, but also as a means to spread knowledge. Wolcott, a Yale graduate and son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, would have been seen as exemplifying the educated elite running the country. His presence in homes and public buildings would have stood for the power of the United States, but also for the virtues to which its citizens could aspire. Historians look at factors such as distribution networks, print runs, or the biographies of those who bought and displayed such images to better understand their social impact.