Henry White

Henry White was an American diplomat who served as Secretary of the United States Embassy in London and later as Ambassador to Italy and France. Bonnat painted his portrait in 1882 when White was in his early thirties and stationed in Europe. The National Gallery of Art in Washington holds the portrait, acquired as part of its collection of nineteenth-century European painting. Bonnat was popular with American sitters — his commanding portraiture appealed to patrons wishing to affirm social standing through European artistic prestige. White would represent the United States at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, making this early portrait a document of a significant American diplomatic career. His youth at the time of the sitting gives the portrait an unusual quality among Bonnat's official subjects.

Oil on canvas with Bonnat's authoritative mature technique applied to a young diplomat in formal dress. The subject's youth gives the portrait a different quality from the aged statesmen more typically associated with official portraiture of this kind.