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About the Artwork
Posed bolt upright in a billowing satin gown, Hannah Wentworth Atkinson is almost a mannequin for the display of opulent textiles. The wife of the colony of New Hampshire's chief justice and richest man, she found a suitable portrait painter in Joseph Blackburn, who sought to present the fashionable tastes of his sitters.
Inscriptions
signed left on ledge: I Blackburn Pinxit 1760
Exhibition history
The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Joseph Blackburn (British, c. 1730–1787)
- Date
- 1760
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Unframed: 124.7 x 99.3 cm (49 1/8 x 39 1/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust
- Accession no.
- 1919.1005
Provenance
Commissioned by Theodore Atkinson, Sr. (1697–1779) and Hannah Wentworth Atkinson (1700–1769), Portsmouth, NH Bequeathed to George King Atkinson (1730–1788), Portsmouth, NH Bequeathed to William King Atkinson (1765–1820), Dover, NH Frances Atkinson Freeman (1797–1883), Dover, NH Mary Wendell Copp Tredick (1811–1896), Nokesville,VA, and Charlotte King Atkinson Copp Wadleigh (1815–1893), Union, NH Francis Freeman Wadleigh (1849–1936), Wakefield, NH [Frank W. Bayley, Copley Gallery, Boston, MA] Purchased by the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, in 1919
More by Joseph Blackburn in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009660
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