Theodore Sedgwick (1746–1813), B. A. 1765, M.A. (Hon.) 1772

This portrait is part of a set of miniatures John Trumbull painted in Philadelphia in 1792. Three of the portraits were studies for his unexecuted painting The Inauguration of the President. Tristram Dalton (1832.41) was a Massachusetts senator; Theodore Sedgwick was a congressman from Massachusetts; and Oliver Ellsworth (1832.44), one of the most distinguished Connecticut politicians of his time, was also serving as a U.S. senator at the time of George Washington's inauguration. Sedgwick was a noted jurist who, in his most famous case (1783), successfully defended a fugitive of slavery against the enslaver from whom she had fled.

Culture: American

Period: 18th century

Credit: Trumbull Collection