H359: Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832)

Identification and Creation

Object Number

H359

People

Alvan Fisher, American (Needham, MA 1792 - 1863 Dedham, MA)
Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776 - 1832)

Title

Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832)

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

1833

Culture

American

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/299998

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

91.6 x 66.6 cm (36 1/16 x 26 1/4 in.)
framed: 120.7 x 103.5 x 9.5 cm (47 1/2 x 40 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Dr. J. Mason Warren, purchase, 1863; Dr. John Collins Warren; his gift (through Dr. Harvey Cushing) to the Warren Museum, Harvard Medical School, 1927.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard University Portrait Collection, Gift of Dr. John Collins Warren through Dr. Harvey Cushing to the Warren Museum, Harvard Medical School, 1927

Object Number

H359

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Publication History

• Probably Boston Athenaeum. Fine Arts Department, exh. cat. (1833), cat. 12
• Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists: American Artist Life, Comprising Biographical and Critical Sketches of American Artists, Preceded by an Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of Art in America, Putnam (New York, NY, 1867), p. 67
• Laura M. Huntsinger, Harvard Portraits: A Catalogue of Portrait Paintings at Harvard University, ed. Alan Burroughs, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1936), pp. 128-129
• Alan Burroughs, Limners and Likenesses: Three Centuries of American Painting, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1936), p. 127
• Anthony A. Walsh, "The American Tour of Dr. Spurzheim.", Journal of the History of Medicine (November 1972), vol. XXVII, p. 198n.
• William H. Gerdts, The Art of Healing: Medicine and Science in American Art, exh. cat., Birmingham Museum of Art (Birmingham, AL, 1981), p. 40, ill. p. 41
• Andrew Oliver, Ann Millspaugh Huff, and Edward W. Hanson, Portraits in the Massachusetts Historical Society: An Illustrated Catalogue with Descriptive Matter, Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, MA, 1988), p. 97
• Stefan Schatzki, "Medicine in American Art: Johann Caspar Spurzheim", American Journal of Roentgenology (November 1998), vol. 171, p. 1296, ill. p. 1296
• Charles Colbert, A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the Fine Arts in America (Chapel Hill, NC, 2009), p. 16-17, ill.
• Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. and Melissa Renn, American Paintings at Harvard, Volume One: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born before 1826, Yale University Press (U.S.) and Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge and New Haven, 2014), pp. 205-207, cat. 156, ill.

Exhibition History

• Probably Boston Athenaeum, Boston Athenaeum, Boston

Verification Level