Susan Walker Morse The Muse
by Samuel F. B. Morse
1836
187.3 x 147.4 cm
The full-length portrait of Susan
Walker Morse (1819–1885), the eldest daughter of the artist, was painted during
the crucial years of the invention of Morse's telegraph (ca. 1835–37). The painting
shows the girl at about the age of seventeen, sitting with a sketchbook in her
lap and pencil in hand with her eyes raised in contemplation. Although traditionally
described as a Muse, the figure is more likely a personification of the art of
drawing or design. Morse drew on the full extent of his European training, taking
from the works of Rubens and Veronese in what was to be an ambitious farewell
to his career as an artist. Stymied by a lack of financial success, he abandoned
painting for science and inventing. This painting was first exhibited at the National
Academy of Design in 1837, where it won enthusiastic praise.
Susan married Edward Lind in 1839 and moved to
his sugar plantation in Puerto Rico, returning often to New York to spend extended
periods with her father, who had been left a widower when Susan was just six.
She gradually grew less and less happy with her husband and plantation life. Lind
died in 1882; in 1885, Susan set out to return to New York permanently but tragically
was lost at sea.