Harvard Art Museums

Susannah Speakman Inman (Mrs. Ralph Inman) (1727-1761)

Robert Feke

Date

c. 1748

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

Department of American Paintings, Sculpture & Decorative Arts

Institution

Harvard Art Museums

These pendant portraits were painted to commemorate the 1746 marriage of Ralph Inman and Susannah Speakman. The couple lived on an estate at the site of present-day Inman Square in East Cambridge. Enslaved and wage-earning laborers farmed on the property and served in the household, attesting to the family’s vast wealth, which accrued from the import of ceramics, glass, wine, and beer from Britain, Canton, and British colonies in the Caribbean. Drawing inspiration from engravings after aristocratic portraits that circulated throughout the Atlantic world, Feke fashioned the Inmans as members of the British gentry, modeling their fine clothing, gestures, and poses on the work of Sir Godfrey Kneller and Sir Peter Lely. Feke’s father-in-law and nephew were clothiers in New York. Their knowledge of tailoring contributed to the artist’s ability to render fabric and fashionable details as valuations of color, light, and mass. Susannah Speakman Inman is depicted in the same dress as her older sibling, Hannah Speakman Rowe, in the nearby portrait. Feke employs the similarity as a visual metaphor of the close relationship between the two sisters.

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