Walt Whitman on his favorite portrait

In this wonderful letter to the artist Charles Hine, the poet discusses the famous portrait Hine had painted of Whitman ten years earlier. That oil painting was the basis for the engraving of Whitman published as the frontispiece in the third edition of Leaves of Grass (1860).

A decade later Hine, dying from tuberculosis, wrote to Whitman and arranged to give him the portrait. In this chatty letter to his “dear, dear friend,” Whitman reports on the reception of the painting at home:

“I have procured the portrait & frame without any trouble, & they are now hanging up in my mother’s front room—& are the delight & ever-increasing gratification of my folks & friends, young & old—some of whom sit by the half hour & just look at it steadily in silence—It is indeed a noble piece of work-manship—age has already improved it, & will still more—both painting and frame were unharmed—Mr. Blondell, 806 Broadway, had the painting & has others of yours.”

Whitman tells Hine that he wants to pay his friend a visit but that he is acting as doctor and nurse to his sick mother. Two weeks later Whitman made the trip and spent the evening and the following day with Hine. He reported to his friend William O’Connor that “an artist friend of mine if very low there with consumption—is in fact dying.”

Whitman loved the 1860 portrait by Hine, calling it perhaps “the best of all,” and noting “I was in full bloom then, weighed two hundred and ten pounds, … I was in the best of health: not a thing was amiss.”

Whitman sold the painting to his friend and benefactor John H. Johnston in 1873 to raise the funds he required to move from Washington to Camden. It is now owned by Brooklyn College.

Provenance: Leonard R. Levine, Christie’s New York, 14 December 2000, lot 155.

$15,000