Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2018.

John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War

Artist Charles Bird King (American, 1785 - 1862)

Date1818-1820

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions36 1/8 x 28 1/2 in. (91.8 x 72.4 cm)
Overall, Frame: 42 x 34 x 4 in. (106.7 x 86.4 x 10.2 cm)

ClassificationsAmerican art

Credit LineGift of the Grandy family in memory of C. Wiley Grandy

Object number58.85.1

Terms

Man
John C. Calhoun
Government
Maps
Black
White
Tan
Gray
Red
Washington, DC

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas portrait painting. The sitter, John Caldwell Calhoun, sits in a red armchair and is dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons. There is an implied table in front of him, supporting a map. The young cabinet secretary holds the map with the thumb and fingers of his left hand, pointing with his right index finger at a place identified on the map as Council Bluff on the Missouri River and a "Road to Chariton," marked by a diagonal red line (on the northeast corner of the new state of Missouri and nearby territory). Calhoun looks intently out of the frame. At the time this portrait was painted this politician from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun, a was the Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President James Monroe 1817-1825. He became the Vice President in 1825 under the Presidency of John Quincy Adams and was reelected in 1828 to serve under Andrew Jackson in the same position.

Label TextCharles Bird King American, 1785—1862 John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, 1818-20 Oil on canvas John C. Calhoun (1782—1850) served as secretary of war under President James Monroe during a period that saw the United States accelerate exploration of its recently-acquired territories west of the Mississippi River. Calhoun holds a map depicting the Missouri Territory and directs the viewer to the point at which the military built its first outpost west of the Mississippi. That outpost, Fort Atkinson, was established in 1819. Charles Bird King painted Calhoun’s portrait back east in Washington D.C., where the neatly drawn map and the cabinet secretary’s commanding presence obscure the often brutal and complicated realities of western expansion. Gift of the Grandy family in memory of C. Wiley Grandy 58.85.1