Images

https://piction.clevelandart.org/cma/ump.di?e=87C5D2576D89CBEBA14B3CD984FE96640CB56F80769DD8E0DFC5805CA388FF73&s=24247294&se=943622552&v=3&f=1919.1006_o2.jpg

Additional Views

Mar 5, 2007

Charles Apthorp

1748

Robert Feke

(American, c. 1707–c. 1752)

America, 18th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 141.5 x 117.5 x 7.5 cm (55 11/16 x 46 1/4 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 127 x 101.5 cm (50 x 39 15/16 in.)

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1919.1006

Location

204 Colonial American

Did you know?

Much remains unknown regarding Robert Feke’s life, including his birth and death dates.

Description

Called “the greatest merchant on this Continent” in his obituary, Apthorp helped transform Boston into one of the key commercial centers in the American colonies. When the fashionable painter Robert Feke came to town, Apthorp commissioned this elegantly tailored and confidently posed likeness of himself. The sailing ship in the distant background symbolizes Apthorp’s deep financial interests in the Atlantic trade, which included not only textiles, wine, and guns, but also slaves. In fact, the slave trade and its attendant commerce comprised a significant portion of colonial Boston’s economy until the decades after the Revolutionary War, when anti-slavery attitudes in New England gained momentum.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Signed lower right: R F P/174[8]

Provenance

Family of the sitter; To Sarah Apthorp Cunningham Bond, Cambridge, MA (d. 1914); To her son William Cranch Bond, Malden, MA; Thomas B. Clarke, New York ; The Brook Club, New York.

Citations

L. P. "Portrait of Charles Apthorp by Robert Feke." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6, no. 5 (1919): 79-80. Reproduced: Front Matter; Mentioned: pp. 79-80 www.jstor.org

"Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6, no. 6 (1919): 113-14. Mentioned: p. 114 www.jstor.org

Park, Lawrence. "Report on the Department of Colonial Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6, no. 7/8 (1919): 130-31. Mentioned: p.130 www.jstor.org

Paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1945. Reproduced: p. 11 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 526 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 155 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 155 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 197 archive.org

Anishanslin, Zara. Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016 Reproduced: P. 264

Exhibition history

Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1909-14.

Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition (26 June-4 October 1936) illus. cat. no. 26, plate II, listed p. 23.

Oberlin, Ohio, Allen Memorial Art Museum, The Arts in America in the Eighteenth Century (May, 1946), illus. cat. no. 5, p. 70, listed p. 68; see Bulletin of the Allen Memorial Art Museum (May, 1946) vol. 3, no. 3 for catalogue.

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Robert Feke (8-30 October 1946); traveled to Huntington, Long, Island, Heckscher Art Museum (2-10 November 1946); to Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (27 November-22 December 1946) illus. cat. no. 2.

[Huntington, New York, Heckscher Art Museum, Robert Feke: Native Colonial Painter (2-10 November, 1946), they had their own, second catalogue; illus. p. 26.

Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Likeness of America: 1680-1820 (5 July-4 September 1949) illus. cat. no. 25, plate 7.

Palm Beach, Florida, Society of the Four Arts, Plymouth Rock to the Armory (9 February-5 March, 1950) cat. no. 3, not illus.

Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, Two Hundred Years of American Painting (8 March-3 April 1955), illus. cat. no. 3, plate 3.

Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum, Rediscoveries in American Painting (3 October-6 November, 1955), cat. no. 38.

Akron, Akron Art Institute, American Portraits (23 February-18 March, 1956)

Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 200th Birthday Celebration of the Apthorp Mansion (17 October-5 November 1960)

Hamilton, Ontario, Art Gallery of Hamilton, American Realists: An Exhibition of American Paintings from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (11 March-23 April 1961) illus. cat. no. 20.

Peoria, IL, Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, 200 Years of American Painting (27 March-28 April 1965)

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Paul Revere's Boston: 1735-1818 (18 April-21 October 1975) illus. cat. no. 44, p. 43 listed p. 220; also included pp. 27-57.

The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936).

The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).

200th Birthday of the Apthorp Mansion. Fogg Art Museum/Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (organizer) (October 17-November 5, 1960).

American Realists. Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Canada (organizer) (March 11-April 23, 1961).

Paul Revere's Boston, 1735 - 1818. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (organizer) (April 18-October 12, 1975).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Charles Apthorp|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1919.1006|author=Robert Feke|year=1748|access-date=07 December 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Contact us

The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, a detail image, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.

You are here:

Images

Charles Apthorp

Charles Apthorp

Robert Feke

Location

Download and Share

Did you know?

Description

Inscription

Contact us