Hannah Bull Thompson

Ammi Phillips was a self-taught portrait painter who worked in rural communities in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York for over 50 years. His portrait of Hannah Bull Thompson demonstrates his ability to capture the individuality and personality of his sitters through his attention to their unique facial features. At the same time, the clumsiness of Thompson's torso and the solid column-like form of her arms reveal Phillips's lack of academic training. The portrait is typical of Phillips's work in the mid-1820s, when he situated his half-length figures against plain, dark backgrounds and outfitted women in meticulously rendered lace accessories.

Phillips painted several members of the Thompson family of New York, including Hannah's husband Alexander Thompson II. Alexander, a wealthy farmer, may have commissioned the portraits as part of redecorating his home with "fancy rooms" and fashionable furniture and to celebrate the birth of his and Hannah's tenth child.