Marshall Owen Roberts (1814–1880)

George Peter Alexander Healy was the most prolific American portrait painter of the nineteenth century, producing likenesses of presidents, European monarchs, and prominent citizens on both sides of the Atlantic. This 1873 portrait of Marshall Owen Roberts — a wealthy New York shipping magnate and philanthropist — belongs to his vast series of American establishment portraits. Roberts had made his fortune in the steamship business and used it philanthropically; Healy's portrait would have been both a social statement and a private commission. The New York Historical Society holds this as part of its comprehensive documentation of prominent New Yorkers through portraiture, a systematic project of visual history-keeping.

Healy's competent academic portraiture gives the successful man the gravitas appropriate to his social standing: controlled lighting on the face, sober costume handled with assurance, the background kept neutral to concentrate attention on the sitter. His technique is reliable rather than brilliant — a professional service delivered with consistent quality.