Artist Robert Field likely painted this miniature in Philadelphia, where the Congress met from 1790 to 1800. Trained at the Royal Academy of Arts in London before he came to North America, Field enjoyed the fame of being First Lady Martha Washington’s favorite miniaturist, as well as the commissions that flowed from it. Wavy hair and a windblown necktie give John McKee, the portrait’s subject, the air of a young man in a hurry, which he was. Before he began his House service in 1823, McKee left Alabama in his 20s to become a government agent to the Choctaw Nation. In that capacity, he travelled to the national capital to make reports to the Congress in the 1790s and 1800s.
