1941

Portrait of Henry P. McIlhenny

American, 1894 - 1972

Although Franklin Watkins was born in New York in 1894, he spent most of his life in Philadelphia, where he documented the city's elite through portraiture. While some critics regarded his portraits as simple caricatures, others praised the artist for capturing his sitters' personalities. In this painting, the prominent Philadelphia art collector Henry P. McIlhenny is surrounded by a few of the objects from his collection, including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance (1890), a small sculpture by Honore Daumier, and a French neo-classical writing cabinet, all of which are now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.