Object details
Accession number
P17w31
Primary Creator
Joseph Blackburn
(England, about 1730 - about 1778, London)
Full title
A Lady of the Russell Family
Creation Date
1754-1764
Provenance
Bequeathed by Judge Chambers Russell (1713-1766), Lincoln (as a portrait of his grandmother, Rebecca Patefield Chambers, 1657-1735) to his brother James Russell (1715-1798), Lincoln, 1766 (?).
Bequeathed by James Russell to one of his two daughters, Mary Russell (1753-1806) or Sarah Russell (1750-1819) on 1 May 1804 (?). Mary bequeathed her estate to Sarah on 26 August 1806.
Presumably bequeathed by Sarah Russell to Samuel Pickering Gardner (1767-1843), Boston, a relative through his wife Rebecca Russell Lowell Gardner (1779-1853) and one of the executors named in her will, on 10 November 1819.
Passed by descent (as a portrait of Rebecca Chambers Russell, 1691-1729, by John Smibert, 1684-1751) to Isabella Stewart Gardner's husband, John L. Gardner, Jr. (1837-1898), 1884.
Dimensions
123 x 93 cm (48 7/16 x 36 5/8 in.)
Display Media
Oil on canvas
Web Commentary
Isabella Stewart Gardner kept meticulous records of many of her acquisitions. In keeping with this legacy, object information is continually being reviewed, updated, and enriched in order to give greater access to the collection.
Permanent Gallery Location
Short Gallery
Bibliography
Lawrence Park. Joseph Blackburn: A Colonial Portrait Painter with a Descriptive List of his Works (Worcester, Massachusetts, 1923), p. 54, no. 76. (entitled "Unknown Woman"; as by Joseph Blackburn, about 1755)
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), pp. 342-44, ill. (the sitter as Rebecca Chambers Russell; as by John Smibert, 1729)
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 134. (entitled "Portrait of a Lady"; as by John Smibert, 1754-1764)
Margaret M. Martin. "On the Codman House." The Fence Observer (18 July 1968), ill. (the sitter as possibly Margaret Chambers; as by Joseph Blackburn)
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 27-29, ill. (entitled "A Lady of the Russel Family (?)"; as by Joseph Blackburn)
Margaret M. Martin. "Letters from the Past: The Woman Behind the Man." Concord Journal (22 August 1985), p. 4, ill. (the sitter as believed to be Mary Russel; as by Joseph Blackburn)
Margaret M. Martin. The Chambers-Russell-Codman House and Family in Lincoln, Massachusetts (Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1996), np, ill. (the sitter as Rebecca Patefield Chambers; as by Joseph Blackburn)
Rights and reproductions
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