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Formal portrait of a fair-skinned woman wearing eighteenth-century blue silk dress, with white ruffles, draped with a coral-pink colored shawl.

A woman, Susannah Speakman Inman, looks at the viewer with large brown eyes, closed lips, blush cheeks, pensive face. She’s positioned facing three-quarter right as her head turns to face us. Her silky sheen dress has a low neckline and three-quester sleeves revealing her porcelain skin and bare neck. Her long dark curly hair is gathered behind. The left wrist rests hanging over a table corner, her right hand follows the drapery folds at her waist. The brown background behind her head blends into a tree shape on the right, with a suggestion of distant mountain landscape on the right.

Gallery Text

These portraits were painted to commemorate the 1746 marriage of Ralph (1713–1788) and Susannah (1727–1761) Inman. The works show Feke, the first major painter born in colonial America, at the height of his powers. Drawing inspiration from the engravings of British portraits that circulated throughout the Atlantic world, Feke fashioned the Inmans as London aristocrats, modeling their clothing and poses on the work of the period’s leading British painters.

These portraits remained in the same family for 250 years. They were first displayed at the Inman estate in East Cambridge, a large property financed through the vast fortune the family accumulated importing ceramics, glass, wine, and beer. After Ralph Inman’s death, the portraits were passed down through eight generations of Inman descendants. In 2004, they were presented to the Harvard Art Museums.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2004.220
People
Robert Feke, American (Oyster Bay, NY c. 1707 - c. 1752 Bermuda)
Title
Susannah Speakman Inman (Mrs. Ralph Inman) (1727-1761)
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1748
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/31141

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2240, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, The Arts in the Eighteenth–Century Atlantic World
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Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
91.4 x 74.9 cm (36 x 29 1/2 in.)
frame: 108 x 91.4 x 5.1 cm (42 1/2 x 36 x 2 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Probable descent, from Ralph Inman to his sister-in-law, Hannah (Speakman) Rowe (1725-1805); by descent to her grandniece, Hannah Rowe (Linzee) Amory (1775-1845); to William Amory I (1804-1888); to his wife, Anna Powell Mason Sears (1813-1895); to their sons in succession, William II (1833-1907), Charles Walter "Ned" (1842-1913) and Francis Inman (1850-1921); to William Amory Gardner (1863-1930), to William Amory III (1869-1954); to his nephew, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III (1893-1959); to his nephew Frederic Winthrop, Jr. (1906-1979); John Linzee Coolidge (1937-); to his sister, Catherine Coolidge Lastavica.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Catherine Coolidge Lastavica, M.D.
Accession Year
2004
Object Number
2004.220
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Publication History

  • Anne Rowe Cunningham, Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant 1759-1762; 1764-1779 (Boston, 1903), pp. ix, 10, ill. 396-397
  • Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences Museum, Early American Paintings: Catalogue of An Exhibition Held in the Museum of the Brooklyn Insitute of Arts and Sciences, exh. cat. (Brooklyn, 1917), p. v
  • John William Linzee, The Lindesie and Limesi Families of Great Britain (Boston, 1917), vol. 1, ill. opp. p. 120; vol. 2, p. 600
  • Cuthbert Lee, Early American Portrait Painters: The Fourteen Principal Earliest Native-born Painters, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 1929), p. 179
  • Frank William Bayley, Five Colonial Artists of New England: Joseph Badger, Joseph Blackburn, John Singleton Copley, Robert Feke, John Smibert, Southworth Press (Boston, 1929), p. 319
  • Henry Wilder Foote, Robert Feke: Colonial Portrait Painter, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1930), pp. 72, 76,160-161
  • Alan Burroughs, Limners and Likenesses: Three Centuries of American Painting, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1936), p. 45
  • Historical Records Survey, Division of Professional and Service Projects, Works Progress Administration, American Portraits, 1620-1825, found in Massachusetts, Volumes 1 and 2, Historical Records Survey (Boston, MA, 1939), p. 215, cat. 1138
  • Barbara N. Parker, "Some Problems in the Origins of the American Portrait", Art In America (October 1945), vol. 33, no. 10, pp. 216-219, p. 219, fig. 2
  • Lloyd Goodrich, Robert Feke, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY, 1946), no. 16, ill.
  • Albert Delmont Smith, Robert Feke, native colonial painter. List of paintings on exhibition, November 2 to November 10, 1946, exh. cat., The Heckscher Museum of Art (1946), p. 40
  • R. Peter Mooz, "The Art of Robert Feke" (1970), University of Pennsylvania, pp. x, 108, 124, 150-51, 192, 228
  • Jeannine Falino, Lives Shaped by the American Revolution: Portraits of a Boston Family, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 2005), pp. 56-7, cat. 3, ill.
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 121, ill.
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. and Melissa Renn, American Paintings at Harvard, Volume One: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born before 1826, Yale University Press (U.S.) and Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge and New Haven, 2014), pp. 35, 200-01, cat 151, ill.

Exhibition History

  • Robert Feke, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 10/08/1946 - 10/30/1946; The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, 11/02/1946 - 11/10/1946; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 11/27/1946 - 12/22/1946
  • Re-View: S424-426 Western Art from 1560 to 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/16/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • 32Q: 2410 South Arcade, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 07/25/2022
  • 32Q: 2240 18th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/06/2024 - 01/01/2050

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu