Paintings American Women 1700-20s

1700s Mrs Augustus Jay. Attributed to Gerrit Duyckinck (1660–ca. 1712).

Attributed to Nehemiah Partridge Mrs Ellery

1720s Attributed to Gerrit or Gerardus Duyckinck Portrait of a Lady


1720s Nehemiah Partridge (1683-1737). Wyntje Lavinia Van Vechten.


1720s Nehemiah Partridge (1683-1737) Catryna Van Rensselaur Ten Broeck.


1720s Perhaps Pieter Vanderlyn (1687-1778). Portrait of a Lady (possibly-Hannah Stillman).


1721 Schuyler Limner possibly Nehemiah Partridge (1683-1737.) Maria Van Alen (Mrs. Thomas Van Alstyne


1722 Nehemiah Partridge (1683-1737) Ariaantja Coeymans Verplank (1672-1743) Mrs David Verplank.


1723 Attributed to Gerardus I. Duyckinck (1695-1746) Elsie Rutgers Schuyler (Mrs. Petrus) Vas (1674-after 1752)

18C American Women by Benjamin West 1738-1820

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.

Timeline 1710-1729 + Paintings of American Women

1710

3,000 German men and women from the Palatinate settle near Livingston Manor on the Hudson River in New York to produce naval stores. When the colony fails, the settlers go first to the Mohawk Valley (in New York) and finally to eastern Pennsylvania.

The English Parliament passes the Post Office Act which sets a postal system for the American colonies controlled by the postmaster general of London and his deputy in New York City.

New York forbids blacks, Indians, and mulattos from walking at night without lighted lanterns.

1711 Artist: Henrietta Johnston 1674-1729. Subject: Henriette Charlotte de Chastaigner, Mrs Nathaniel Broughton.

1711

Pennsylvania prohibits the importation of male & female blacks and Indians.

Rhode Island prohibits the clandestine importation of male & female black and Indian slaves. (See this blog for more information of enslaved women in the 18th century.)

1711-13

Tuscarora Indian War in North and South Carolina. Hostilities break out between Native Americans and settlers in North Carolina after the massacre of male & female settlers there.

1712

The Carolina colony is officially divided into North Carolina and South Carolina.

Charles II's Grant of New England to the Duke of York, 1676 - Exemplified by Queen Anne; October 30
The Pennsylvania assembly bans the import of male & female slaves into that colony.

In Massachusetts, the first sperm whale is captured at sea by an American from Nantucket.

Grace Smith writes The Dying Mothers Legacy: Or the Good and Heavenly Counsel of that Eminent and Pious Matron, Mrs. Grace Smith, late Widow to Mr. Ralph Smith of Eastham in New-England. Left as a Perpetual Monitor to Her Surviving Children; As It Was Taken from Her Own Mouth a Little Before Her Death, by the Minister From that Town Where She Died. Boston, Printed and sold by Timothy Green, at the lower-end of Middle-Street, 1712

An alleged slave revolt in New York City leads to violent outbreaks. Nine whites are killed and eighteen slaves are executed.

New York declares it illegal for male & female blacks, Indians, and slaves to murder other blacks, Indians, and slaves. And New York forbids freed blacks, Indians, and mulatto slaves from owning real estate and holding property.

In Charleston, South Carolina male & female slaves are forbidden from hiring themselves out.

1713

England's South Sea Company is allowed to transport 4,800 male & female slaves per year into the Spanish colonies of North America.

Queen Anne's War ends with the Treaty of Utrecht.

1714

George I becomes king of England (r. 1714–27).

Tea is introduced for the first time into the American Colonies.

1715 Artist: Henrietta Johnson 1674-1729. Subject: Mary Magdalen Gendron, Mrs Samuel Prioleu 1691-1765

1715
Yamasee tribes attack and kill several hundred male & female Carolina settlers.

Rhode Island legalizes slavery.

Maryland declares all slaves entering the province and their descendants to be slaves for life.

1716

South Carolina settlers and their Cherokee allies attack and defeat the Yamassee.

The first group of black slaves is brought to the Louisiana territory.

1717-18 Artist: Henrietta Johnston 1674-1729. Mary Griffith (Mrs Robert Brewton, Mrs William Loughton) 1698-1761.

1717

Scots-Irish immigration begins, with most settling to western Pennsylvania.

New York enacts a fugitive slave law.

1718

French found New Orleans.

The Tuscarora people are defeated in a war with North Carolina colonists. With many of their people killed they move north to live with other Iroquois nations in New York Colony.

Blackbeard, the pirate, is killed, putting an end to pirate raids along the southern colonial coast.

North Carolina’s first free school, endowed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, opens at Bath.

1719 Artist: Henrietta Johnston 1674-1729. Subject: Judith DuBose (Mrs Joseph Wragg) 1698-1769.

1719-41

The American Weekly Mercury is the first newspaper launched in Philadelphia by Andrew Bradford (1686-1742). It would publish six of Franklin's "Busy-Body Papers" in 1729 and continue publication until 1746.

The Boston Gazette is the second newspaper in Boston is launched by William Brooker (fl. 1715-1720) and printed by Benjamin Franklin's older half-brother, James Franklin (1697-1735). The paper would become the official organ of the government and continue until 1741.

1720 Attributed to Gerrit or Gerardus Duyckinck Subject: Portrait of a Lady

1720 Artist: Gerardus Duyckinck 1695-1746. Subject: Mrs Johannes van Braght b 1673. Her husband was an alderman for the City of New York.

1720

Estimated population of colonies: 475,000. Including Boston (pop. 12,000), Philadelphia (pop. 10,000), and New York (pop. 7000).

A smallpox epidemic in Boston prompts Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston to experiment with inoculation against the disease. Mather had learned of the practice from Onesimus, his slave, who had himself been inoculated as a child and knew inoculation to be a widely accepted medical practice in Africa.

1720-25 Attributed to Schuyler Limner (active ca. 1715–1725) Portrait of a Lady (possibly Tryntje Otten Veeder)

Benjamin Franklin leaves Boston for Philadelphia, a trip that he chronicles in his Autobiography.

South Carolina planters settle along the Lower Cape Fear River and begin developing the rice and naval stores industries. They bring large numbers of enslaved people and establish a large, plantation-style slave system.

Virginia abolishes manumissions.

1720-28 Artist: Gerardus Duyckinck 1695-1746 Subject: Grace Mears, Mrs Moses Levy

1724

The French build forts on the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, and the Niagara rivers.

French Louisiana prohibits slaves from marrying without the permission of their owners.

The population of male & female black slaves in the American colonies reaches 75,000.

Riots occur in Philadelphia as poor people tear down the pillories and stocks and burn them.

1725 Artist: Charles Bridges 1670-1747. Subject: Evelyn(1708-1737) daughter of William Byrd II and Lucy Parke.

1725

Explanatory Charter of Massachusetts Bay; August 26

1726

Zabdiel Boylston: An Historical Account of the Smallpox Inoculated in New England. Boylston details his experiments with smallpox inoculation in Boston, in which only 6 of his 244 patients die of the disease. This figure compared with the 844 out of 5,757 Bostonians who died of smallpox naturally during the same epidemic. One of the first of its kind written by an American physician.

1727 John Smibert 1688 - 1751. Eleanor Nightengale

1727

George II becomes king of England

Benjamin Franklin founds the Junto Club.

Cadwallader Colden (1688-1776): History of the Five Nations. Colden's greatest achievement is this tribal history of the Iroquois Indians based on firsthand observation.

1728

Elizabeth Hanson (1684-1737) writes God's Mercy Surmounting Man's Cruelty, a polished literary account of Hanson's 1724 capture by the French and Indians. (See Hanson's account on this blog.)

Jewish colonists in New York City build the first American synagogue.

1729 Artist: John Smibert 1688-1751. Subject: Mrs. Tyng.

1729
Benjamin Franklin prints, publishes and largely writes the weekly Pennsylvania Gazette.


See Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.
HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/