Noah Smith

Art Historical Context

Ralph Earl’s 1798 portrait of Noah Smith captures a moment of early American self-fashioning in the years following the Revolution. Painted in oil on canvas at a monumental scale, the work reflects the aspirations of the new republic’s emerging elite. Earl, an American-born artist who trained briefly in London, brought a direct, unadorned realism to his sitters that distinguished his work from the more theatrical British portrait tradition. The painting’s generous dimensions and formal pose underscore the cultural importance of portraiture in Federal-era America. Such large canvases were comm...

About the Artist

Ralph Earl · 1751–1801

Ralph Earl (1751–1801) was born on May 11 in Shrewsbury or Leicester, Massachusetts, the eldest of four children to Ralph Earle, a colonel in the Revolutionary army, and Phebe Whittemore Earl. Growing up amid farmers and craftsmen in Worcester County, Earl displayed prodigious talent as a self-taught artist, emulating the works of John Singleton Copley after observing his half-brother Henry Pelham...