Oil on canvas, circa 1840, the portrait of a lady signed to the verso, presented in conforming giltwood composition frames with arched openings.

Stretcher sizes 37 1/4 x 28 in.; Frame dimensions 47 1/4 x 39 1/4 in.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He began to paint portraits in the naive style characteristic of the Connecticut School while attending Yale University. After graduation, he moved to Boston and became the pupil of Washington Allston, who introduced him to a traditional academic study program. Morse went to London in 1811, where he met Benjamin West, befriended Charles Robert Leslie, and was accepted as a student at the Royal Academy of Art. Morse returned to America in 1815, and was forced into earning a meager living as an itinerant portraitist, active in New England, Charleston, South Carolina, and New York. in 1824, Morse was finally rewarded the commission to paint a full-length portrait of Marquis de Lafayette, the turning point of his career. In 1826, Morse and his group of young artists who seceded from the American Academy of Art founded the National Academy of Design. Morse served as its first president until 1845.

Morse's reputation for radical politics interfered with his career. At the age of forty-six, he decided to devote the last thirty-five years of his life to perfecting the electromagnetic telegraph. He died in New York in 1872.

The portrait of the gentleman with two holes to the upper margin; and the portrait of the lady with repair to lower right; both with age cracking and associated retouching.