John Caflin Southwick, Jr.

These two paintings are from a group of family portraits commissioned by the Brooklyn businessman John Southwick from George Baker, Jr., a prominent portraitist in New York. Baker’s contemporaries credited his success to his early work as a miniature painter, a craft he learned from his father. Such training helped the younger Baker hone his skills at modeling the human figure, creating delicate color effects, and fostering a sense of intimacy in full-scale oil portraits.