Walking Stick of Moses Seymour (1774): Art, History and Details

Walking Stick of Moses Seymour (1774) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

At the age of fifteen, Moses Seymour Jr., sat for a portrait that honors both its sitter and implicitly, his father, the former Revolutionary War major from Litchfield, Connecticut, who commissioned this work. Like so many American painters of his generation, Earl studied with Benjamin West in London. Upon his return, he practiced his profession in his native Connecticut River Valley. Seymour's book and cane suggest that the young man reads and walks in harmony among nature's beauties, an activity that recalls the ideals of the ancient Roman poet Horace. In a pose that presses him close to the foreground, however, this cultured figure also conveys a message about man's domination over nature. The painting remained in the sitter's family until it was given to the museum.

Object facts

• Title: Walking Stick of Moses Seymour
• Date: 1774
• Culture: America
• Type: Miscellaneous
• Technique: wood and metal
• Dimensions: Overall: 96.8 cm (38 1/8 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2003.285.a

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. George S. Lockwood Jr. in loving memory of her husband

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.