A native of Charlestown, Massachusetts, Samuel Morse was perhaps the most popular portraitist working in Charleston, South Carolina, since Jeremiah Theus (see B.60.50) and John Wollaston (see B.54.20) several generations earlier. A student of Washington Allston in London, Morse produced portraits that evoked the aristocratic elegance of Gilbert Stuart (see B.72.117 and B.61.55) and his contemporary Thomas Sully (see B.81.11). A founder of the short-lived South Carolina Academy of Fine Arts, a founding member of the National Academy of Design, New York, and its president from 1827 to 1845 and 1860 to 1862, Morse abruptly ended his painting career in 1837 to pursue his scientific interests, including the telegraph, which he invented and patented the following year. 

After failing dismally to break Stuart’s monopoly on the portrait trade in Boston, Morse traveled to Charleston. There, he quickly established his reputation, relinquishing the somber style of Allston and adopting the elegant virtuosity of Stuart’s manner, which had proved so enduring in Boston: flickering highlights, saturated colors, and fluid brushwork.  In his first winter in Charleston in 1818–19,  Morse painted Catherine Smith Poyas (1769–1836) and her husband, Dr. John Poyas (1759–1824). A prominent Charlestonian, the wife of a city doctor and owner of a vast slave-holding plantation, Catherine peers out of a brilliantly painted white ruffled cap and ruche that completely frame her head and face, providing stark contrast with her black silk dress and the tiny black tendrils of hair visible underneath her cap. The effect is echoed by the dramatic sky that forms the background. Morse’s virtuoso skill in rendering crisp whites and luxurious blacks set off with accents of red in the upholstered armchair and patterned paisley shawl lends a note of aristocratic ease to this rather homely but intelligent-looking sitter, whose aging hand the artist sensitively portrays.

Related examples: Morse, Dr. John Earnest Poyas, 1818, ex coll. Thomas J. Watson (Sotheby’s, New York, sale 1517, September 28, 1995, lot 50). Jeremiah Theus presumably painted Catherine Smith as a child, but that portrait is unlocated. This portrait is similar in costume, composition, and background to other Morse portraits of Charleston women, for example, Mrs. James Ladson, 1818, the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston; and Martha Pawley LaBruce, c. 1819, private collection.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.