Benjamin West, William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians in 1683 (1771-72)

Painting in the Colonies

Benjamin West, The Death of

Anonymous, Pearlware mug with print showing General Wolfe’s
General Wolfe (1770) Death, c.1800. Winterthur Museum, Delaware.
(the French-Indian War, 1754-63)
 How do these representations show a different
conception of Native American culture. What
differences are there and why? Take into
account the historical circumstances and what
each artist intended to communicate.

John White: The Village of Secoton, c. 1585. Benjamin West, William Penn’s Treaty
Watercolor on paper, 12¾ x 7¾ in. with the Indians in 1683 (1771-72)
 John Singleton Copley, Watson John Singleton Copley,
and the Shark (1776) Paul Revere (1768)

John Singleton Copley, Nicholas

Boylston (1767) Boylston wears a
“banyan”
 John Singleton Copley,
John Singleton Copley,
Henry Pelham or Boy with a Squirrel (1765)
Paul Revere (1768)
Copley’s American portraits vs. British Grand
Manner

English Portrait Tradition

Peter Lely, Duchess of Portsmouth
(c.1671) Getty Collection
John Singleton Copley, Mrs.
Thomas Gage (Margaret Kemble
Gage) (1771) “turquerie”
 The State and Status of Portrait Painting

John Smibert, The Bermuda Group

or Dean Berkeley and His Entourage (1729)

Silver sugar bowl

English portrait
tradition, e.g.
Sir Godfrey Kneller, John Singleton Copley,
Self-Portrait (1706) Henry Pelham or Boy with a Squirrel (1765)
 • Portraiture the only marketable genre Skirting the low status of portraiture:
in New England
• This is where Copley had developed
expertise
• Yet he knew this wasn’t the elevated
abstract generalizations of European
Grand Manner
• Profile view distances and generalizes
the portrait, removing it from the
realm of strict portraiture

Joseph Wright, The Corinthian Maid John Singleton Copley,

(1782-84) (British) Pliny’s story about the Henry Pelham or Boy with a Squirrel (1765)
Chooses profile view.
Squirrel and flying squirrel: name for transatlantic ships or schooners
Flying squirrel native to North America

John Singleton Copley,

Henry Pelham or Boy with a Squirrel (1765)
North American Flying Squirrel
Natural history engraving (1743)
 The circulation of commodities:
sugar and silver

Edward Winslow, Sugar box, Boston 1702

(silver), (Winterthur Museum)

John Singleton Copley,

Paul Revere (1768)
Trade and Slavery

John Singleton Copley,

Paul Revere (1768)

John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark (1776)

Edward Winslow, Sugar box (1702)
Brook Watson’s recollection of working in the West Indies.
Print culture: broadsides

“Take it Daughter its only a S– A—”

“Minerva shield me
I abhor it as Death”

Magna Carta

A response to the Stamp Act of 1765…

John Singleton Copley, The Deplorable State of America (1765)
Paul Revere, The Bloody Massacre (1770)
The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught, from London Magazine (May 1774)
 Jonathan Trumbull,
The Death of General
Warren at the Battle of
Bunker’s Hill, 17 June, 1773
(1786)

Benjamin West, The Death of General

Wolfe (1770), (the French-Indian War)
Jonathan Trumbull,
The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, 17 June, 1773 (1786)
Jonathan Trumbull, The Declaration of Independence (1794)
 Heroes of the Revolution

Gilbert Stuart, Portrait of George Washington,

Left- “The Athenaeum” (1796)
right- The “Landsdowne” (1796)
Gilbert Stuart’sWashington & Greco-Roman
icons: Apollo Belvedere & Augustus Ceasar

Washington the patrician and aristocrat

Jean-Antoine Houdon,
George Washington (1788)
Gilbert Stuart, George Washington “The Athenaeum” (1796)
and U.S. Dollar Bill Portrait
Washington and His Family image
in Popular Culture

Silk embroidery

Edward Savage, The

Washington Family, 1789–96

Kuhn, Henry Darnall III

(c. 1710) Engraving
2.27 Pierre Charles L’Enfant: plan for Washington, D.C.,
1791. Engraving of 1887 after the original drawing (detail).
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
2.28 William Thornton, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and
Charles Bulfinch: United States Capitol, Washington, D.C.,
1792–1850. Lithograph by R. P. Smith, 1850. Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C.
2.29 United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., as
enlarged by Thomas Ustick Walter, 1851–65