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Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, Raphael

c. 1770

Benjamin West

(American, 1738–1820)

America, 18th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 88 x 87.5 x 9 cm (34 5/8 x 34 7/16 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 66.5 x 66.3 cm (26 3/16 x 26 1/8 in.)

The Charles W. Harkness Gift 1927.393

Location

204 Colonial American

Did you know?

Born in colonial America, West eventually became a court painter to George III of England.

Description

West was the first American artist to study in Italy, where he spent three years before permanently settling in London. He so admired the artistic ideals of the Italian Renaissance master Raphael that he named his eldest son after him, and he imitated Raphael’s celebrated Madonna of the Chair when composing this tender double portrait of his wife and child.

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Provenance

1927-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

1916-1927

Edward S. Harkness [1874-1940], New York, NY, to the Cleveland Museum of Art

1916

Mary Warden Harkness [1864-1916], New York, NY, by bequest to her brother-in-law Edward S. Harkness ¹

1911-1916

Charles W. Harkness [1860-1916], New York, NY, by bequest to his wife Mary Warden Harkness1 ²

Until 1911

(M. Knoedler & Co., New York, NY, sold to Charles W. Harkness)

Henry J. Pfungst [1844-1917], Cleveland Square, London

By 1909

Castle Smith, London

Probably 1848-

Grandson of Benjamin West, Jr., to his widow

1820-by 1848

Benjamin West, Jr. [1772-1848], to his grandson

c. 1770-1820

Benjamin West [1738-1820], London, to his son, Benjamin West, Jr.

Provenance Footnotes

¹Mary Warden Harkness's will states: “I give and bequeath to my husband’s brother, Edward S. Harkness, the paintings described as follows, for his life, and upon his death I give and bequeath the same to the Art Museum of Cleveland, at Cleveland, Ohio, to be known as The Charles W. Harkness Gift.”

²1The Knoedler inventory cards document the sale of the painting (stock no. F 411) to Harkness in November 1911.

Citations

The Bequests of Mary Warden Harkness," Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 15 (February 1928): 43-50.

Benjamin West, Series IV. Inventory cards, 1859-1971, M. Knoedler & Co. Records, box 127, Getty Research Institute.

The Connoisseur (Feb. 1909): 115

"Bequest of Mrs. Charles W. Harkness." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 4 (1917): 63. Mentioned: p. 63 www.jstor.org

Paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1945. Reproduced: p. 13 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. 532 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. 160 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. 160 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. 198 archive.org

Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. Reproduced: p. 42 - 43

Franklin, David. The Cleveland Museum of Art. London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd., 2012. Reproduced: p. 48 - 49, front cover

Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 44

Exhibition history

London, The Royal Academy of Arts, (1770), see Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904 p. 212, no. 198.

Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibtion of The Cleveland Museum of Art; The Official Great Lakes Exposition (26 January-4 October 1936), no. 53, p. 30.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Benjamin West 1738-1820 (1938), cat. no. 18, not illus.

Akron, Akron Art Institute, 40 American Painters: A Survey of American Painting from Colonial to Modern Times, fo the Opening of the Institute (December, 1945), illus. cat. no. 2.

Charlotte, NC, Mint Museum of Art, 10th Anniversary Exhibition (October, 1946), cat. no. 12, not illus.

Dayton, Dayton Art Institute, The Artist and His Family (3 March-April, 1950), cat. no. 38.

Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Style, Truth, and the Portrait (1 October-10 November 1963) cat. no. 46, illus.

Greensburg, PA, The Westmoreland Country Museum of Art, The American Portrait (19 September-31 October 1965)

Kalamazoo, MI, Kalamazoo Art Center, Paintings by American Masters: Fifth Anniversary Exhibition (14 September-19 October 1966), illus. p. 6.

The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 12, 1936).

Style, Truth and the Portrait. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 1-November 19, 1963).

The American Portrait. Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA (organizer) (September 14-October 31, 1965).

American Masters. Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI (organizer) (September 14-October 19, 1966).

CMA @ Oberlin - American Portraits. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 29-December 17, 2006).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, Raphael|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1927.393|author=Benjamin West|year=c. 1770|access-date=30 March 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, Raphael

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