Get the Picture

You might remember a few years ago, I featured a series of posts about the offices where I worked. While not quite as full of history and majesty as the 12th century castle where I worked in Wales, Tivoli House was historic in its own right. I am now working in another historic building for an organization which is one year younger than my old employer. I wrote about it here. The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland was founded in 1799, and is the Medical Society of Maryland. Chirurgical is the old word for surgical.One of the most interesting parts of working there is learning the history of both the buildings and the organizations. The walls are papered in oil portraits of the past presidents of the organization, and it’s been such fun wandering around the place checking out all of them.

This is my office mate. He hangs above my desk. As with many other of the men in the paintings, he’s sporting rather impressive facial hair!

I am posting a Doc of the Day on our Facebook page, with as much information as I can find (often very scant) about the sitter, their dates, and the artist.

Some of the paintings are of very old men, and others are much younger.

Although the portraits are not in any particular order, except for a few of the founders, they’re somewhat easy to date by their clothes, and the style of the portrait.

We had Sotheby’s value the collection a few years ago, and I am trying to match up their descriptions with the paintings. This is only the smallest portion of the collection, and I keep discovering more when I round a corner, open a closet or grab lunch!

Stay tuned for more about the buildings, and our “stacks”.