Portrait of Benjamin Rush
Archives and Special Collections
The Benjamin Rush Gallery, located in the Archives and Special Collections of the Waidner-Spahr Library, features Thomas Sully's brilliant portrait of the co-founder of Dickinson College. Painted for Benjamin Rush during the final years of his life, the canvas represents the revolutionary figure seated before a study, amid books, documents, and a distant view of the Pennsylvania Hospital, where he served on the medical staff from 1783 until the time of his death in 1813. The portrait is one of Sully's finest works and reveals the artist's fluid brushwork and command of the leading trends in European portraiture. The work boasts an incomparable provenance, having passed from the hands of the artist to Benjamin Rush and has since remained in the Rush family until its acquisition in 2009 by the Trout Gallery. The portrait is the centerpiece of an exhibition gallery that features a revolving selection of artifacts associated with Benjamin Rush and the founding of Dickinson College.
Gallery Hours
Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–4 p.m.
Thomas Sully, Portrait of Benjamin Rush (detail)
Oil on canvas
