Chess websites seem to discount the Morphy angle. The position depicted in painting is not accurately transcribed in the Columbia article, the black king is on black, not white in the painting, for instance. Regardless, it is difficult to recreate the board from the painting because the pieces are nonstandard, and some are obscured. However they are reasonably reconstructed, modern analysis invariably shows an easy win for the black.
The Columbia story claims that Morphy played the white pieces against each of several experienced club members, and defeated them all. Modern analysis cannot reproduce that result. There are a lot of famous chess positions that superficially appear lost where snappy combinations lead to dramatic “change of circumstances”. This is not one.
It’s still a cute story.
Thanks LiM!