After Benjamin West (1738-1820), A Self-Portrait

A 19th-Century Work

bearing Philadelphia Museum of Art label verso, oil on canvas, framed.

29 7/8 x 24 7/8 inches (sight), 35 x 30 1/2 inches (frame).

30 x 24 7/8 in.

Sold by Order of the Board of Trustees of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (now Philadelphia Art Museum) to Benefit Future Acquisitions

Provenance:

With J. Lakin, London, circa 1927,

Collection of Lena Cadwalader Evans (1872-1955), New York (acquired directly from a London dealer, likely Colnaghi),

Gifted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (now Philadelphia Art Museum), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1935.

Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (now Philadelphia Art Museum), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, accession no. 1935-28-1.

Note:

The present painting appears to be a copy of the version now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, itself once thought to be the original. X-radiography has shown that the National Gallery’s picture was originally an oval composition, like the authentic Baltimore prototype. The rectangular format of the Philadelphia painting therefore suggests that it was copied after the National Gallery version had already been altered—likely during the nineteenth or early twentieth century.

The work entered the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (now Philadelphia Art Museum) as part of a gift from Lena Cadwalader Evans (Webb), who donated forty artifacts (primarily textiles and silver) in the 1930s. In her correspondence with Fiske Kimball, Evans stated her belief that the painting was a copy of West’s composition executed by Gilbert Stuart. No evidence supports this attribution, and, as Carol Soltis has confirmed, the painting bears no stylistic resemblance to Stuart’s known work.

The picture was lent to the Governor’s Mansion in 1969 but has never been exhibited in the Museum galleries. Given the presence of nine authenticated paintings by Benjamin West in the collection, it is unlikely to be displayed in the future.

After Benjamin West (1738-1820), A Self-Portrait