Artwork
Cornelius Allerton
Cornelius Allerton is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Ammi Phillips. It dates from 1655 and is held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
About this work
Overview
Ammi Phillips, a traveling portraitist who worked in the northeastern United States from the 1810s through the early 1860s, produced the oil painting titled *Cornelius Alleller* in 1655. The work is part of the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection and exemplifies the artist’s extensive output, which includes more than eight hundred attributed portraits.
Subject & Meaning
The canvas presents a seated man in a dark coat and white cravat, his lap holding an open book that appears to be a medical dictionary. A small horse stands behind him, suggesting a connection to a professional or scholarly identity, possibly that of a physician or academic.
Technique & Style
Phillips applied a restrained palette of muted grays, browns, and a touch of red on the book’s spine. Soft chiaroscuro modeling gives the figure’s face and hands a three‑dimensional presence, while the overall composition follows the formulaic yet adaptable approach typical of his portrait practice.
History & Provenance
Created during Phillips’s itinerant period, the painting later entered the holdings of the Art Institute of Chicago. Its provenance traces back to the artist’s itinerant commissions across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York, reflecting the regional demand for portraiture in the early nineteenth century.
Context
Although the work is dated 1655, it aligns stylistically with the Dutch Golden Age tradition that influenced many American portraitists of the period. Phillips’s practice of integrating European compositional conventions with local subjects situates the piece within a broader transatlantic visual dialogue.
Own this work as a print
Artist & collection
Artist
Ammi Phillips (April 24, 1788 – July 11, 1865) was a prolific American itinerant portrait painter active from the mid 1810s to the early 1860s in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York.
