Samuel Morse is chiefly remembered as an inventor, specifically for the development of the telegraph. In the early 1800s, however, he was regarded as New York’s leading portrait painter. This tender, elegant image of his wife and children resonates with both private and public meaning. A celebration of domestic relations, it belongs to a genre of portraiture that first became popular during the mid-1700s, Age of Enlightenment. These portraits gave new emphasis to the maternal role and revealed the changing ideas about family life promoted by such thinkers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
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