Paintings John Wollaston

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In this blog we have reviewed John Wollaston's years in the British American colonies before his return to England, and we have seen his ermine attempt at turquerie. Here are a few of his portraits of more mature colonial American women. Another posting looks at Wollaston's portraits of young women.
1750 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Rachel Levy (Mrs Isaac Mendes Seixas). American Jewish Historical Society. New York City. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the historical society for an accurate image.)

1750 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Experience Johnson (Mrs. Samuel Gouverneur). Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Winterthur for an accurate image.)

1750s John Wollaston (1710-1775). Anne Carter Mrs. Randloph Harrison). Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the historical society for an accurate image.)
1750s. John Wollaston (1710-1775). Mary Meade Walker. Virginia Historical Society. Richmond.

1752 John Wollaston (1710-1775) Dorothy Willing (Mrs. Walter Stirling). (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce.)

1752 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Mrs. Philip Livingston. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce.)

1754 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Elizabeth Tasker (Mrs. Christopher Lowndes). (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce.)

1754 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Mrs. Charles Carroll. Detroit Institute of Art. (Reproduction at popartmachine.com. Contact the museum for an accurate image.)

1755 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Elizabeth Harrison (Mrs. Peyton Randolph). Virginia Historical Society. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the historical society for an accurate image.)

1756 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Mrs. Wm Allen. Brooklyn Museum. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the museum for an accurate image.)

1757 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Martha Dandridge (Mrs. Daniel Parke Custis) (Mrs. George Washington) Washington and Lee. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Washington and Lee for an accurate image.)

1758 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Mary Willing (Mrs. William Byrd III). Virginia Historical Society. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the historical society for an accurate image.)

1760 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Mary Carroll (Mrs. Charles Carroll of Duddington). (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce.)

1765-67 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Lady in Gold Dress from Charleston. Wisconsin. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the museum for an accurate image.)
1765-67 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Mary Ross (Mrs. John Beale). Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston Salem, North Carolina. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact MESDA for an accurate image.)

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Paintings American Women 1740s

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1740 John Heaton/Heyton (c. 1698-a. 1742). Magdalena Douw (Mrs. Harme Gansevoort).
1740 John Smibert (1688-1751). Portrait of a Lady.
1740 Unknown Artist. Woman Gathering Roses.
1740s Artist Unknown. Jocohabed Michaels (Mrs. Judah Mears).
c. 1749 Joseph Badger (1708-1765). Elizabeth Campbell (Mrs. William Foye)

1745-47 Unknown Artist. Martha Salisbury Quincy (Mrs. Norton Quincy).
1745-49 John Wollaston (1733-1767). Lucy Parry, Wife of Admiral Parry.
1746 Joseph Badger (1708-1765). Eliz Storer (Mrs. Isaac Smith).
1746 Robert Feke (1707-1751). Anne McCall.
1746 Robert Feke (1707-1751). Anne Shippen (Mrs. Charles Willing) 1710-1791.
1746 Robert Feke (1707-1751). Mary McCall (1725-1799) (Mrs William Plumstead).

1748 Robert Feke (1707-1751). Grizzell Eastwick (Mrs. Charles Apthorp).
1748 Robert Feke (1707-1751). Mrs. Isaac Winslow.
1748 Robert Feke (1707-1751). Susannah Faneuil (Mrs. James Boutineau).
1749-52 John Wollaston (1733-1767). Portrait of a Woman.

1749-1752 John Wollaston (1733-1767). Mrs. Joseph Reade.

1749 John Greenwood (1727-1792). Mrs. Henry Bromfield (Margaret Fayerweather)
1749 John Wollaston (1733-1767). Margaret Tudor Nicholls (Mrs. Richard Nicholls).

c. 1749 Robert Feke (1707-1751). Mary (Mrs. John Channing).

It's the Same Dress for Theus, Wollaston, & McIlworth

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Here are a few Jeremiah Theus (1716-1774), John Wollaston (1710-1775), & Thomas McIlworth (c 1720-1769) paintings of colonial America women with similar costumes & countenances copied from one source, an English 1752 Richard Houston mezzotint. While Theus and Wollaston were in South Carolina at the same time, Thomas McIlworth, from Scotland, was only in New York.
1765-67 John Wollaston (1710-1775). Rebecca Bee Holmes (Mrs. Isaac Mead).
1752 English Mezzotint by Richard Houston (1721-1776) after painting by Francis Cotes. Dutchess of Hamilton. (This depiction is from an old lecture slide. You may see one of these mezzotints at the Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum in Delaware, or at the Yale Center for British Art.)
1754-63 Jeremiah Theus (1716-1774). Sarah Parker (Mrs. Charles Lowndes)
1755 Jeremiah Theus 1716-1774 Mrs. Thomas Lynch (Elizabeh Allston Lynch)

1758 Jeremiah Theus 1719-1774). Susannah Holmes (1739–1771) (Mrs. Thomas Bee).

c 1750s Jeremiah Theus (1716-1774). Young Southern Woman.
1750s Jeremiah Theus (1716-1774). Mary Magdalen Prioleau (Mrs. Thomas Grimball.).

1760 Jeremiah Theus (1719-1774). Mrs. William (Mary) Mazyck.
Intrigingly, Thomas McIlworth (c 1720-1769) painting in New York from around 1757-1767, also used the Duchess of Hamilton mezzotint as the basis for two of his portraits. McIlworth immigrated to New York from Scotland around 1757. He was in New York City from 1757-1762, then moved to Schenectady, New York where he lived until 1767. In that year he journeyed to Montreal, where he disappeared from records in October of 1767. His will was probated in Canada in 1770. His clients included gentry from New York City, the Hudson Valley, and the Albany area.
1762-67 Thomas McIlworth (fl 1757-67). Catherine Van Rensselear (Mrs. Philip Schuyler) (1734-1803).

c 1767 Thomas McIlworth (fl 1757-67). Probably Catherine Van Cortlandt (Mrs. James Van Rensselaer) (1752-1785).
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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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Portraits from American Matthew Pratt 1734-1805

.Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Portrait of Abigail Willing (1743–1830)

Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Elizabeth Gay (Mrs. Thomas Bolling) with twins Sarah & Ann 1773
Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Elizabeth Shewell (1741-1814) (Mrs Benjamin West) c 1765
Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Benjamin West (American artist, 1738-1820)

At age 15, Matthew Pratt (1734-1805) was apprenticed to his artist uncle, James Claypoole, from whom he learned "all the different branches of the painting business, particularly portrait-painting." About 1764 he went to England to join expatriate artist Benjamin West. Upon returning to the new republic, Charles Willson Peale noted that Pratt had a full-length of John Dickinson plus "a considerable number of portraits on hand." Pratt worked in New York City in 1771-72, where his commissions included a full-length portrait of Governor Cadwalader Colden, & he met John Singleton Copley. Pratt next traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia, where he advertised in The Virginia Gazette (March 4, 1773) that he was "Lately from England and Ireland But last from New York." As a partner in the Philadelphia firm of Pratt, Rutter & Co., which offered "Portrait and ornamental painting," he returned to the practical decorative & sign painting.

Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Self Portrait.

The Colonial American Portraits of Benjamin West

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Benjamin West was the 10th child of a rural innkeeper in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in October, 1738, and died exaulted in London, in March, 1820. Before his ascension to historical allegory painter for English royalty, he began learning his craft as a humble portraitist in Philadelphia. West told John Galt, his biographer, that when he was a child, Native Americans showed him how to make paint by mixing some clay from the river bank with bear grease in a pot.

During his years painting in the British American colonies, his portraits exhibit a modest attempt to emulate the baroque & rococo styles, which he probably observed in Philadelphia in the works of English emigrant William Williams (1727–1791), American itinerant artist Robert Feke (1707–1751), visiting English rococo portraitist John Wollaston (1733-1767), and the immigrant Swedish native Gustavus Hesselius (1682–1755) plus his son John Hesselius (1728–1778).

His modest American portrait compositions also exhibit some knowledge of English mezzotint portraits reflecting the works of Peter Lely (1618–160) and Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723). West told a friend that a "Mr. Hide (Haidt), a German, gave him instruction." Johann Valentine Haidt (1700-1780), a Moravian evangelist & trained painter, painted not just portraits, but also history & religious paintings. Apparently, Benjamin West became determined to paint inspiring historical & religious compositions as well.

He later wrote, "Most undoubtedly had not (I) been settled in Philadelphia I should not have embraced painting as a profession." However, his early move away from Philadelphia to England was necessary for him to work in a country where artists were commissioned to paint inspiring depictions of history's real & imagined indispensable men and women who made extreme sacrifices and performed noble deeds.

In the American colonies, the gentry paid for portraits, not inspiration.

In 1760, encouraged by the provost of the College of Philadelphia William Smith, Pennsylvania Chief Justice William Allen sponsored Benjamin West's trip to Italy, giving him a £100 line of credit and a letter of introduction calling him "a young ingenious Painter of this City, who is desirous to improve himself in that Science, by visiting Florence & Rome." A year later Allen and his brother-in-law, Pennsylvania Governor James Hamilton, provided more money for West. West referred to Allen as "the principal of my patrons."
During his 22 years in America, he was a fairly typical provincial artist; but his choice to leave the colonies in 1760, for Europe & England led to his appointment as the official painter at the court of King George III & to his becoming co-founder of the Royal Academy in London, where 3 generations of fellow American students would return home from his tutelage to impact the art of the emerging republic.

His students included Joseph Wright (1756-1793), Ralph Earl (1751-1801), Matthew Pratt (1734-1805), Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), John Trumbull (1756-1843), Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), and Washington Allston (1779-1843). And, of course, he taught Bostonian John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), who chose never to return to his homeland.

1755 Benjamin West (1738-1820). Mary Bethel (Mrs. Samuel Boude).
1756 Bejamin West (1738-1820). Sarah Ursula Rose.
1759 Benjamin West (1738-1820). Jane Galloway (1745-1801).

c 1760 Benjamin West (1738-1820). Anne Allen (later Mrs. John Penn). John Penn (1729-1795) was the last governor of colonial Pennsylvania, serving from 1763-1771 & 1773-1776, & he was a grandson of William Penn. Thos portrait of the daughter of West's benefactor Chief Justice William Allen may have been painted as West was traveling from Pennsylvania to Italy & then to England.
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