Daniel Huntington (1816-1906)
Oil on canvas, 1895
Gift of the Partnership for New York City, Inc.
NYSM 2003.41.3

Combining elements of traditional “history painting” and the “conversation piece” group portrait, Huntington commemorates an historic event that occurred four decades earlier: in 1854 entrepreneur Cyrus W. Field and his partners met at Field’s Manhattan residence to strategize laying the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. Although the first successful message was transmitted in 1858, from Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan, the cable project was not fully completed until 1866 (see also NYSM 2003.41.74, portrait of Lt. Otway H. Berryman).

Huntington’s evocative painting, commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, reunites the original group plus inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, who was not present at the first meeting. Huntington, with artistic license, even painted himself into the background. Several subjects, including Morse, were in fact deceased by 1895.

Pictured, left to right, are Peter Cooper, David Dudley Field, Chandler White, Marshall O. Roberts, Samuel F. B. Morse, Daniel Huntington, Moses Taylor, Cyrus W. Field, and Wilson G. Hunt.