Little is known about the life and career of the portraitist Robert M. Pratt. He briefly attended the National Academy's antique school in 1830, but soon returned to Binghamton. In 1833 he sent some of his earliest portraits to the Academy's annual exhibition and spent the following years working as an itinerant portrait painter in New York State. By 1845, however, he had returned to New York City. Pratt quickly established himself as a successful portraitist and, though his career was undistinguished, his portraits were exhibited annually at the Academy up to 1859. In this year he sailed for Europe to pursue his studies in Paris. There is little information which documents Pratt's sojourn, but by 1865 he had returned to New York. In the following years he began painting still lifes and genre scenes as well as portraits. After 1869, however, he produced few works.
