Portrait of Thomas Couture (1815–1879)

Originally from Vermont, William Morris Hunt became a prominent artistic leader in Boston, where he became a society portrait painter and art teacher. He studied in Rome and Düsseldorf before joining the atelier of the French academic painter Thomas Couture. This bronze bas relief portrait of Couture in profile was created in the late 1840s, around the time that his early focus on sculpture was shifting to painting. He later studied in Barbizon with John Millet and in Boston, promoted the acceptance of the French Barbizon school. Other copies of this plaque are in the collection of the Louvre and the Brooks Memorial Library (Brattleboro, VT).