{
"data": {
"id": 141935,
"accession_number": "1965.474",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Samuel Williams, c. 1817. Washington Allston (American, 1779\u20131843). Oil on canvas; framed: 172.5 x 142.5 x 14 cm (67 15/16 x 56 1/8 x 5 1/2 in.); unframed: 142.2 x 111.8 cm (56 x 44 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund, 1965.474",
"current_location": "205 Federal American",
"title": "Samuel Williams",
"creation_date": "c. 1817",
"creation_date_earliest": 1812,
"creation_date_latest": 1827,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Painting",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 172.5 x 142.5 x 14 cm (67 15/16 x 56 1/8 x 5 1/2 in.); Unframed: 142.2 x 111.8 cm (56 x 44 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 1.725,
"height_inch": 67,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
"width": 1.425,
"width_inch": 56,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.125,
"depth": 0.14,
"depth_inch": 5,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.5
},
"unframed": {
"height": 1.422,
"height_inch": 56,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 1.118,
"width_inch": 44,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 300917,
"title": "Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions",
"description": "Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10-October 16, 1966).",
"opening_date": "1966-09-10T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 444326,
"title": "A Cloudy Symbol: Washington Allston in Retrospect",
"description": "A Cloudy Symbol: Washington Allston in Retrospect. Lowe Art Museum, Miami, FL (organizer) (March 6-April 13, 1975).",
"opening_date": "1975-03-06T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 442407,
"title": "\"A Man of Genius\": The Art of Washington Allston",
"description": "\"A Man of Genius\": The Art of Washington Allston. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (organizer) (December 11, 1979-February 3, 1980); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (February 28-April 27, 1980).",
"opening_date": "1979-12-11T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Boston, The Athenaeum Gallery: Annual Exhibition (1835), no. 60",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "Boston, Harding's Gallery, Exhibition of Pictures Painted by Washington Allston, (1839) no. 34",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "Boston, The Athenaeum Gallery, Annual Exhibition (1850), no. 62",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Catalogue of Works of Art Exhibited: Pt. 2, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, and Decorative Art, (1881) no. 203",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Washington Allston (1948), no. 110",
"opening_date": "1948-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Collection in Progress (1955), no. 4",
"opening_date": "1955-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "United States Information Agency, Tour of South America (1956-57), no. 5",
"opening_date": "1956-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "United States Information Agency, Tour of Greece and Israel (1958), no. 8",
"opening_date": "1958-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Center, American Painting 1760-1960, (3 March - 3 April1960), p. 16.",
"opening_date": "1960-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Tucson, University of Arizona Art Gallery, American Painting 1765-1963, (1964), illus. pg. 17, cat. no, 2.",
"opening_date": "1964-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, Golden Anniversary Acquisitions, (1966), cat. no. 54",
"opening_date": "1966-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Coral Gables, Lowe Art Museum, The Paintings of Washington Allston, (6 March - 13 April 1975) cat. no, 17, discussed in text on pg. 9.",
"opening_date": "1975-03-06T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, \"Man of Genius\" The Art of Washington Allston (1779-1843), (1979) fig. 48, p. 71, discussed in text on pg. 86.",
"opening_date": "1979-01-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Timothy Williams, Boston; Mrs. W. Pratt; Theodore Lyman, Brookline, Mass.; Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischman, Detroit; Kennedy Galleries, New York",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": 1
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Allston experimented with painting recipes, even attempting to mix his pigment colors with skimmed milk.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Allston\u2019s portrait of his London banker and business agent explores the experience of reverie. Williams looks off absently, perhaps inspired by the pictures in the book he holds. With its view of an Italianate landscape beyond the columns of this invented setting, the painting seemingly invites viewers to join the sitter in dreaming about faraway places.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60483468"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1965.474-samuel-williams"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 161",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n185"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 161",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n185"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 200",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n220"
},
{
"citation": "Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 48 - 49",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1965.474",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1965.474/1965.474_web.jpg",
"width": "702",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "359390",
"filename": "1965.474_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1965.474/1965.474_print.jpg",
"width": "2674",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "6245724",
"filename": "1965.474_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1965.474/1965.474_full.tif",
"width": "7016",
"height": "8920",
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}
},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "Walter and Jean Kalberer Foundation Gallery",
"athena_id": 141935,
"creators": [
{
"id": 2706,
"description": "Washington Allston (American, 1779\u20131843)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1779",
"death_year": "1843",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1965-11-06T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1812,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1817",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-07-04 11:16:28.544000"
}
}