Benjamin Rush portrait, 1813
Permanent ID:
1475Date:
1813Image Description:
Benjamin Rush (1745/46-1813) was a leader of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. He founded Dickinson College, was Surgeon-General of the Continental Army, and a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He championed empiricism in medicine, abolition, and free education. He was an all-around intellectual who still embodies the most cherished and inscrutable virtues of the American Revolution. This engraving was modeled after Thomas Sully’s portrait of Rush, arguably his most famous depiction. The original painting is held by the University of Pennsylvania in their Pennsylvania Hospital Historic collections in the Pine Center Building. David Edwin was an American engraver, born in Bath, England. As a young man, he had run away to sea, and arrived in Philadelphia in 1797. Here, he became employed by portrait painter Edward Savage (1761-1817), and worked for him as a commercial engraver for twenty years until his eyesight failed. He died in Philadelphia in 1841.Inscription:
PAINTED BY SULLY. / PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH DELAPLAINE S.W. CORNER OF CHESNUT [sic] & SEVENTH STS. PHILADELPHIA. 1813. / ENGRAVED BY EDWIN. / BENJAMIN RUSH M.D. (Beneath Portrait)Address:
7th and Chestnut Streets, PhiladelphiaFormat:
EngravingsDimensions:
Width: 18.1 cm, Height: 25 cmCollection:
Historical Society of Pennsylvania portrait collectionRelated People or Organizations:
Sully, Thomas (artist)Dodson, R.W. (engraver)