Abigail Chesebrough (Mrs. Alexander Grant)

Art Institute of Chicago

Abigail Chesebrough (Mrs. Alexander Grant)

Joseph Blackburn (English, active in British colonies in North America and Bermuda, 1752–64)LinkedCulture matchlcp-235bdc937e42

Date
1754
Medium
Oil on canvas
Culture
Newport
Department
Arts of the Americas
Institution
Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID
102777

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

Dressed in imported luxurious fabrics and accessories, 20-year-old Abigail Chesebrough displays the material wealth of her family in Newport, Rhode Island, in this portrait by Joseph Blackburn. Her father, David Chesebrough, was a merchant and an enslaver, amassing his fortune through the triangular trade of people of color, molasses, and rum between Western Africa, the Caribbean, and New England. Blackburn shaped his career around the Atlantic trade networks developed in the 18th century. Probably trained in London, he traveled to Bermuda in 1752, securing commissions there. Two years later he was in Newport, where he painted Abigail as well as her stepmother. Blackburn moved on to paint portraits in Boston and Portsmouth before returning to England in 1764.

View at Art Institute of Chicago ↗

The authoritative record is held by Art Institute of Chicago. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.iixxOBqHA5mscbI6.AUKzhiNehdVffWNWhjqXXMzCsS1OH-IS9yvJ9ypKtaU5dv4QpXobLcViINb3xcsZvzZ-WtoS2s9BgqKpnlUJOnwhCAKgMYx_tjXKFAd7kIZrTUDfAR9FZ3183Pm7grmxYs0cmnsvUF9rDQbVqmow3uAl451QtxET5Y6eSy38ZnIiCFqrn8GAyOG95RNDG_Dx0QvxQUa82l0rDuFmw74hwEcE6L2u04-KAPI7-R7Cq7Bykfx2g3ZN1PKlDLA8lr5mcvkX7Tutmt0M2oNbEuDmU9A6kSWXSee at Art Institute of Chicago QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.ZUesXys7dFJag10v.HTLX3hgCqbtbs79HY69mfO1UHbUNQXUlMcaZkrKysy0IaQExNq_9h3JUSQCdRI_rY_k7tHTdCw2uEwcaAYSKPrtNBlWivnr8dzz2UFJWTIgRy5QK0sAWBl7HbUUAqfyEQfjcwGVWMpTBAgTTjRJM8OgslllhwJypHlA3Bwtkuo5cdMs6YBUFjrmVABfYN5HjbquZGE-wzaEvDDAvijanPKg532UW83O2YHUmEFtuiYGidoCgqCy2UkM4og-kXL_WMB8XhYZmb0iLCKTyX2ndCuGeRg
Open this page
See at Art Institute of Chicago

Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line
Bequest of Miss Amelia Peabody
Provenance
David Chesebrough (1702/3–1782), Newport, RI, and Stonington, CT, 1754 [father of the sitter; this and the following according to letter from Dr. Charles M. Williams to Robert C. Vose, Jr., c. 1970; copy in curatorial object file]; by descent to his daughter, Abigail Grant (1734–by Dec. 1, 1807; born Abigail Chesebrough, also Mrs. Alexander Grant), Newport, RI, and London, 1782 [the sitter]; by descent to her grandson, Deacon David Chesebrough Smith (1782–1833), Stonington, CT, 1808; by descent to his daughter, Betsey Chesebrough Williams (1806–1860; born Betsey Chesebrough Smith, also Mrs. Charles Phelps Williams, Sr.), Stonington, CT, 1833; by descent to her daughter, Bessie S. Sherman (1832–1915; born Bessie S. Williams; also Mrs. Ezra Lewis Sherman), Chicago, 1860; given to the Stonington Historical Society, Stonington, CT, 1916 [letter from Dr. J. H. Weeks to Dr. C. Williams, Dec. 23, 1916; copy in curatorial object file]; consigned to Vose Galleries, Boston, by Oct., 1970 [ Antiques Oct., 1970, 561]; Amelia Peabody (1890–1984), Boston, 1977; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1984.

Linked open data

Authority identifiers that link this record into the wider web of cultural data — stable references you can follow to the source.

Object type
AAT300033618

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Art Institute of Chicago and other institutions.