TitlePortrait of an unidentified man
Date1884
MediumOil on canvas mounted on panel
DimensionsUnframed: 25 × 21 in.
SignedSigned lower left: "A. A. Anderson 1884"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number29-P
Label TextThe painting is assumed to be by Abraham Archibald Anderson, as no other recognized portraitist of the period is recorded with that surname and the initials "A. A." It has variously been suggested in Academy records that it is a self-portrait or a portrait of David Maitland Armstrong (1836-1918), who as a member of the Society of American Artists became an Associate of the Academy when the two organizations merged in 1906. Neither identification can be logically supported: Anderson was not a member of the Academy, and therefore no portrait of him would be expected to be in the collection; members of the Society of American Artists who automatically became members of the Academy at the time of the merger were not required or expected to present diploma portraits. Further, Armstrong would have been forty-eight years old in 1884, somewhat younger than for the appearance of the subject of the portrait. However, among the portraits known to have entered the collection that are not now accounted for is that of Samuel Hawk, a prominent New York collector. William Samuel Hawk gave the Academy a portrait of his uncle in 1918, at the same time he presented Salut aux Blessés, which Samuel Hawk had commissioned from Edouard Détaille. The character and costume of this portrait suggest the possibility that its subject is Hawk.
