John Neagle, Portrait Painter, and Pat Lyon, Blacksmith

The most often reproduced and best known painting by John Neagle is his portrait of “Pat Lyon, the Blacksmith.” The original portrait, signed “J. Neagle, 1826–7” and owned by the Boston Athenaeum, is now on loan to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Fig. 1). A slightly larger replica of the same subject, painted and signed by Neagle in 1829, hangs in the Rotunda of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia (Fig. 2). Not only was Pat Lyon, the Blacksmith one of the most important paintings in the life and career of John Neagle himself, but it is one of the most significant works in the whole history of American genre portrait painting. As the full story of the painting has never been completely presented in print, the author proposes to recount it here, and to analyze the painting in the light of the story. In the process various iconographic errors that have arisen in connection with the painting can be corrected.