Cleveland Museum of Art

Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, Raphael

Benjamin West

Date

c. 1770

Medium

oil on canvas

Culture

America

Department

American Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

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

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