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Gallery Text

Hannah Speakman Rowe’s pose and blue silk dress mirror the likeness of her younger sister, Susannah Speakman Inman, though the portraits were never intended to hang together. Feke painted Hannah Speakman Rowe as a complement to his portrait of her husband, tea merchant John Rowe. The three portraits in Harvard’s collections communicate a close sibling bond amid a large, extended family’s desire to claim social power and historical importance through visual legacy.

What does it mean to be visually remembered and preserved? In a material sense, this painting has received conservation treatments on both the paint surface and the frame so that it may continue to be seen. In an ideological sense, this painting offers a narrow glimpse into Anglo-colonial life. It articulates the budding nature of American traditions built on British ideals and tropes, revealing the desire for order and identity during a time of uncertainty.

--Madison Conliffe, Conservation Junior Fellow, Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2021.75
People
Robert Feke, American (Oyster Bay, NY c. 1707 - c. 1752 Bermuda)
Title
Hannah Speakman Rowe (Mrs. John Rowe) (1725-1805)
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1748
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/370651

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
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: verso, left stretcher, white chalk: 33
  • label: verso, upper left of frame, red border, black ink: [torn, missing text] Susan Amory / 233 Marlborough St. / 3. City
  • label: verso, top stretcher, red border, black ink: Miss Susan Amory / 233 Marlborough St. / [torn, missing text?] 3 frame City
  • label: verso, top right of stretcher, brown ink: This portrait is the property / of Mrs. George M. Dexter / Hannah R. Armory
  • inscription: verso, top stretcher, graphite: VG #30812 / 36 1/2 x 29 1/4
  • inscription: verso, top of frame, obscured by canvas, graphite: [illegible text]
  • label: verso, top right stetcher, brown ink: This portrait of / Mrs. Rowe / was given to / Mrs. George M. Dexter / by / Mrs. Hannah Rowe Amory / by Mrs. G. M. Dexter / to / Charles Amory / by / Charles Amory / to / Mrs. Chas. Amory Jr / June 1st 1889
  • inscription: verso, right stretcher, black crayon: Fogg Art Museum
  • label: verso, lower left stretcher, black marker: 21 A1 / 447.1941
  • label: verso, on backing board, MFA Boston label: [typewritten:] 46.1998 / Robert Feke / American, about 1707-about 1751 / Mrs. John Rowe / oil on canvas / Anonymous Loan
  • label: verso, backing board: [printed:] Vose Galleries / of Boston / INCORPORATED / ESTABLISHED 1841 / 238 NEWBURY STREET BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS 02116 / [typewritten:] #30812 WA / Feke, Robert (1724-1769) / "Mrs. John Bower" [sic] / Oil on Canvas, 38 1/2 x 29 1/4 inches

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Mrs. John Rowe (Hannah Speakman), bequest; to Hannah Rowe Linzee Amory (1775-1845), her niece, by probable descent; to Charles Amory (1808-1898) and Martha Babcock (nee Greene) Amory; to their son, Charles Copley Amory (1836-1871) and M. Louisa (Dexter) Amory; to their granddaughter, Susan C. Amory (c.1863); to Walter Amory; to Catherine Coolidge Lastavica, 1993, gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2021

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Catherine Coolidge Lastavica
Accession Year
2021
Object Number
2021.75
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Anne Rowe Cunningham, Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant 1759-1762; 1764-1779 (Boston, 1903), p. 4
  • John William Linzee, Lindeseie and Limesi Families of Great Britian, The Fort Hill Press (Boston, privately published, 1917), p. xv, repr. opp. p. 128
  • Henry Wilder Foote, Robert Feke: Colonial Portrait Painter, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1930), pp. 178-179
  • Jeannine Falino, Lives Shaped by the American Revolution: Portraits of a Boston Family, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 2005), pp. 49-53, cat. no. 1, repr. p. 51

Exhibition History

  • 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