In this artwork, how is the Subject discussed?
The oldest of the clerics who sat for Eakins, the 84-year-old Elder was near the end of a long and distinguished career in the church. Born in Baltimore in 1819, he was ordained a priest in 1846. In 1857 he was appointed Bishop of Natchez, Mississippi.
During the Civil War he rose to prominence by refusing to follow an order given by occupying Union forces to include prayers for the President in local Catholic services – a stand for which he was briefly jailed. He further distinguished himself during a yellow fever epidemic in 1878, when he caught the disease while ministering to the sick.In 1883 Elder succeeded John Baptist Purcell as the Archbishop of Cincinnati. A capable administrator, Elder soon reorganized the diocese administration and brought it out of debt.In 1903 Bishop Henry K. Moeller, Elder's secretary and future successor, heard of Eakins's clerical portraits from Henry Turner, a colleague at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, and decided to commission a portrait in honor of his superior. Having accepted the commission, Eakins departed Philadelphia for Cincinnati by train on November 25, 1903; Moeller paid his travel expenses.This was the farthest that Eakins travelled to paint a portrait; most of his subjects were local to Philadelphia. It was also unusual among his clerical portraits in that it was a commission from a stranger, rather than a gift for someone he had come to know personally. Eakins worked quickly – on December 15 he wrote to his friend and former student Frank W. Stokes that he'd finished Elder's portrait in one week.  "I think it one of my best," he added.
Archbishop of Cincinnati Henry K. Moeller St. Charles Borromeo Seminary Frank W. Stokes Catholic Civil War John Baptist Purcell portrait Cincinnati