Henry S. Mount on His Death Bed
William Sidney Mount American
Not on view
The subject of this haunting death-bed record by William Sidney Mount is his older brother, Henry, who died of tuberculosis. In 1824, William was apprenticed to Henry, a successful sign and ornamental painter in New York, and later would earn critical and popular acclaim for his rural narrative paintings. In this profile sketch, Mount unflinchingly renders the changes in facial skin color brought on by livor mortis. He inscribed the drawing to Benjamin Franklin Thompson, a lawyer and author of “The History of Long Island,” who, in its pages memorialized the deceased as “mild and amiable…. The death of such a man…was generally and deeply regretted, both by his family and a large circle of acquaintances.”
