John Lothrop Motley

John Lothrop Motley, the American historian and diplomat whose Rise of the Dutch Republic became a classic of nineteenth-century historiography, appears in this 1835 portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. Motley's connections to British intellectual and diplomatic circles during his European years brought him into Phillips's orbit. The National Portrait Gallery's collection provides the institutional framework for this transatlantic literary portrait.

Phillips captures the American historian with the intellectual distinction appropriate to a man of letters. The National Portrait Gallery context places this portrait within the broader visual history of literary and cultural achievement. The handling is professional, with careful attention to the features that convey scholarly intelligence.