Paintings John Wollaston

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English rococo portraitist John Wollaston arrived in New York in 1749, where he worked for 2 years. Wollaston left England just as Neoclassicism, as a reaction against baroque and rococo styles, was spreading throughout England and Europe.

He painted briefly in Philadelphia in 1752; and, by the winter of 1753, Wollaston moved south to Annapolis, Maryland and then to Virginia.

Wollaston's rococo portraits were a hit in Maryland's capital. The March 15, 1753, Maryland Gazette carried the following poem honoring Wollaston.
"On Seeing Mr. Wollaston’s Pictures, in Annapolis," by a Dr. T. T.

Behold the wond’rous Power of Art!
That mocks devouring Time and Death,
Can Nature’s ev’ry Charm impart;
And make the lifeless Canvas breathe.

In the Chesapeake, he painted the families of many plantation-owning gentry. He returned to the city-life of Philadelphia in 1758; and in the fall of 1765, he appeared in the bustling, high-style port city of Charleston, South Carolina.

On January 19, 1767, Wollaston, announced his plans to leave Charleston to return to England, in the South Carolina Gazette:

The Subscriber intending for England in a few weeks, takes this public method of returning thanks, to all gentlemen and ladies who have been so good to employ him: Those who may have any demands upon him, are desired to bring in their accounts; and of those who are indebted to him he requests the favour they will discharge the same.

This is one of his last Charleston portraits with a mix of formal rococo and a hint of exotic turquerie. An earlier portrait painted by Wollaston in 1754, of Marylander Elizabeth Calvert (Mrs. Benedict Calvert) at the Baltimore Museum of Art also displays ermine trim.


1767 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Ann Gibbes (Mrs. Edward Thomas) Worcester Museum. (This image is from a lecture slide. Do not reproduce or copy. Contact the Worcester Museum for an accurate image.)


For Wollaston's portraits of mature colonial American women see this posting.

For Wollaston's portraits of young colonial women see this posting.










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