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    Museum collections / Art Institute of Chicago
    Alexander Grant
    Cosmo Alexander. Alexander Grant, 1770. The Art Institute of Chicago. Public domain (CC0).

    Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago

    AT-00001366

    Alexander Grant

    by Cosmo Alexander

    View at the Art Institute of Chicago

    Inscriptions

    Signed recto, right-bottom, on base of column, in brown paint: "Alexr p[inxt] A D 1770"; inscribed recto, middle-left, on letter, in black paint: "To / Alexander Gra[nt] / (Late of Jamai[ca)]"

    Provenance

    David Chesebrough (1702/3–1782), Newport, RI, and Stonington, CT, 1770 [father-in-law 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 through the family to his great-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]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1977.

    Exhibition history

    Stonington, CT, Stonington Village Improvement Society, Exhibition of Early American Portraits, Aug. 20– , 1925, cat. 4. RI, Art Association of Newport, Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Artists Identified with Newport, Rhode Island Tercentenary, July 25–Aug. 16, 1936, cat. 11. RI, Newport Historical Society, permanent galleries, Sept. 18–1974–Sept. 21, 1976.

    Publications

    William Dunlap, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States vol. 1 (C.E. Goodspeed and Company, 1918), 197–99, 202. Lawrence Park, Gilbert Stuart, An Illustrated Descriptive List of his Works, vol. 1 (William Edwin Rudge, 1926), 25, 357. Art Association of Newport, Retrospective Exhibition of The Work of Artists Identified with Newport, Rhode Island Tercentenary, exh. cat. (Art Association of Newport, 1936), 10, cat. 11. James Thomas Flexner, America’s Old Masters (Viking Press, 1939), 259–61. Virgil Barker, American Painting (Macmillan, 1950), 117. James Thomas Flexner, "Gilbert Stuart, 'Primitive'," Antiques 67, no. 3 (Mar., 1955): 233–35 (ill.). Gavin Maitland Goodfellow, Cosmo Alexander: The Art, Life, and Times of Cosmo Alexander (1724–1772), Portrait Painter in Scotland and America (master's thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1961), 157, cat. 55, pl. 19 (ill.). Gavin Maitland Goodfellow, “Cosmo Alexander in America,” Art Quarterly 26, no. 3 (Autumn, 1963): 309–20, fig. 5 (ill.). "Notes," Bulletin of the Newport Historical Society 48, no. 1 (Winter, 1975): 260–62 (ill.). Pam McLellan Geddy, “Cosmo Alexander’s Travels and Patrons in America," Magazine Antiques 112, no. 5 (Nov., 1977): 972–77. Milo M. Naeve, The Classical Presence in American Art (Art Institute of Chicago, 1978), 15, cat. 18 (ill.). Milo M. Naeve, “Cosmo Alexander’s Portrait of Alexander Grant,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 72, no. 1 (Jan.–Feb., 1978), 8–10 (ill.), https://www.jstor.org/stable/4104026. "The Classical Presence in American Art," The Magazine Antiques 114, no. 3 (Sept., 1978): 496–506 (ill.). Judith A. Barter, et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998), 71–75, cat. 18 (ill.). Michael J. Boonstra, "Descendants of 'King' David Chesebrough of Newport, Rhode Island, With Clues to the Identity of His Son-In-Law, Hon. Alexander Grant, Esq., of Scotland, Newport, Nova Scotia, Jamaica, and London," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 156, no. 624 (Oct., 2002), 372–88 (ill.).

    Open-access museum data

    This record comes from the open-access collection data that the Art Institute of Chicago publishes for unrestricted use (Creative Commons Zero). Art Trackers shows a selection of the museum's published fields. The Art Institute of Chicago is not an Art Trackers client and has not reviewed or endorsed this page; the museum's own website is the authoritative record.

    • View this work at the Art Institute of Chicago
    • The Art Institute of Chicago: open-access terms

    Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.

    Quick Overview

    Artist
    Cosmo Alexander (American, born Scotland, 1724–1772)
    Date
    1770
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    127.7 × 101.6 cm (50 1/4 × 40 in.)
    Type
    Painting
    Classification
    painting
    Style
    18th Century
    Place
    Scotland
    Department
    Arts of the Americas
    Credit line
    Ada Turnbull Hertle Fund
    Accession no.
    1977.2

    Open-access museum record · AT-00001366

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