Painting, Thomas Nast, 1884
date: label: date made
content: ca. 1884
name: label: depicted (sitter)
content: Nast, Thomas
label: maker
content: Nast, Thomas
notes: label: Description
content: Born in Germany, Thomas Nast (1840–1902) immigrated to New York in 1846. Nast’s gifts for illustration and social observation found ready use in national mass-circulation news magazines that did not yet have the means to publish photographs. Nast published more than three thousand drawings, primarily in Harper’s Weekly between 1862 and 1885.
label: Description
content: Nast favored Union-affirming policies and enjoyed the relative autonomy to express his political views. Nast’s early cartoons skewered the corrupt regime of New York City’s William Marcy “Boss” Tweed. Nast went on to popularize the elephant and donkey as symbols of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively.
label: Description
content: Nast may have painted this self-portrait around 1884, when he lost his fortune in a Wall Street Ponzi scheme. It is perhaps a self-caricature. Nast renders himself with a furrowed brow, collapsed into a chair. An open drape reveals New York’s Trinity Church, at the foot of Wall Street.
label: Description
content: Out of favor with his editor, Nast left Harper’s Weekly in 1887. He later joined the Democratic National Committee as a contract cartoonist but never recovered a national audience or financial position.
topic: label: general subject association
content: Portraits
setName: label: See more items in
content: Political History: Political History, General History Collection
label: See more items in
content: Government, Politics, and Reform
label: See more items in
content: American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith
label: Exhibition
content: American Democracy
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PL.223388.01
label: accession number
content: 223388
label: catalog number
content: 223388.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Painting
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: oil on canvas (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 30 in x 22 in; 76.2 cm x 55.88 cm