Cushman was a Boston-born actress who became the leading American stage actress and immensely famous in both America and England. Cushman was the stage manager of the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia from 1842 to 1844, and this portrait was painted during that time., The Folger Shakespeare Library has an almost identical portrait of Charlotte Cushman, also painted by Sully, which was donated to them in 1936 by Mrs. Vincent Cushman, wife of Charlotte's nephew., Bequest of Anne Hampton Brewster, 1892., Exhibited in: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts' exhibition, Memorial Exhibition of Portraits by Thomas Sully (1922); Philadelphia Art Alliance for a theatrical exhibition culled from the Charlotte Cushman Club (1955); National Portrait Gallery's exhibition, This New Man (1968); National Portrait Gallery's exhibition, Thomas Sully, Portrait Painter (1983); Library Company and Historical Society of Pennsylvania's exhibition, Women 1500-1900 (1974); Milwaukee Art Museum and San Antonio Museum of Art's exhibition, Thomas Sully: Painted Performance (2013-2014).
