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.
Provenance
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (1927-); Edward S. Harkness [1874-1940], New York, NY, to the Cleveland Museum of Art (1916-1927); Mary Warden Harkness [1864-1916], New York, NY, by bequest to her brother-in-law Edward S. Harkness (1916); Charles W. Harkness [1860-1916], New York, NY, by bequest to his wife Mary Warden Harkness1 (1911-1916); (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, NY, sold to Charles W. Harkness) (Until 1911); Henry J. Pfungst [1844-1917], Cleveland Square, London (?); Castle Smith, London (By 1909); Grandson of Benjamin West, Jr., to his widow (Probably 1848-); Benjamin West, Jr. [1772-1848], to his grandson (1820-by 1848); Benjamin West [1738-1820], London, to his son, Benjamin West, Jr. (c. 1770-1820)
Accession Number
1927.393
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
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.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
The Charles W. Harkness Gift
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting Canvas American Color: Brown
Background & Context
Background Story
This intimate double portrait shows West's wife Elizabeth holding their son Raphael — named, with typical Enlightenment ambition, after the great Renaissance master. Painted around 1770, shortly after West's arrival in London and just before his career took off with The Death of General Wolfe, the portrait is remarkably personal for an artist known primarily for grand history painting. Elizabeth's expression is tender and specific, and the composition — mother and child in a unified pyramidal form — recalls Renaissance Madonna portraits while remaining grounded in the realities of 18th-century family life.
Cultural Impact
The painting gains additional resonance from West's biography. He was an American colonial who had traveled to Italy for artistic training and then settled permanently in London. His marriage to Elizabeth Shewell, a fellow American from Philadelphia, anchored him in a community of expatriates. Naming their son Raphael signals West's artistic ambitions clearly, but the warmth of this portrait shows that those ambitions coexisted with genuine affection.
Why It Matters
This double portrait reveals West the person behind West the institution. The president of the Royal Academy, the history painter to the king, is here simply a husband and father producing a work of extraordinary tenderness.
