Currently not on view
Benjamin Rush (1746–1813), Class of 1760,
1823
J. Tickell Viner, after Charles Balthazar J. F. de Saint-Memin, French, British, active 1821–1854
PP165
Rush graduated at the age of 14, and is the youngest known Princeton graduate. He later signed the Declaration of Independence and became the era’s most important American doctor and medical teacher. Rush’s early graduation was impressive given that to be admitted to Princeton, one has to master both Latin and Greek. Admissions were accomplished not by application but by a personal interview with the president; a typical interview might have the president present the aspiring scholar with a passage from the New Testament in the original Greek, with the requirement that he translate it into Latin. Rush was instructional in convincing John Witherspoon to migrate from Scotland to assume the presidency of College, having met Witherspoon while pursuing medical studies in Scotland.
Information
Title
Benjamin Rush (1746–1813), Class of 1760
Dates
1823
Maker
J. Tickell Viner , after Charles Balthazar J. F. de Saint-Memin, French
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
sight: 58.5 x 48.3 cm (23 1/16 x 19 in.)
frame: 74.3 x 63.5 cm (29 1/4 x 25 in.)
Credit Line
Princeton University, gift of John S. Pierson, Class of 1840
Object Number
PP165
Signatures
Dedicated, signed, and dated on back: To Dr. Pierson from his sincere friend J.T. Viner, London 1823
Culture
Type
Subject
- Donald D. Egbert, Princeton Portraits, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947)., fig. 222, pp 317-329
- Christopher Wood, Victorian painters, (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club, 1995)., p. 407
- Karl Kusserow et al., Inner sanctum: memory and meaning in Princeton’s Faculty Room at Nassau Hall, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2010)., p. 60, fig. 12 (illus.)
