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Maker(s):Unknown
Culture:American (18th century)
Title:Colonel John Harwood (1703-1788)
Date Made:before 1788
Type:Painting
Materials:oil on canvas
Measurements:Frame: 32 1/2 in x 26 in x 1 1/4 in; 82.55 cm x 66.04 cm x 3.175 cm; Stretcher: 31 5/8 in x 25 1/8 in; 80.3275 cm x 63.8175 cm
Accession Number:  AC 2007.24
Credit Line:Gift of Sidney Hall Paige (Class of 1946) and Henry Hall Paige (Class of 1950)
Museum Collection:  Mead Art Museum at Amherst College
2007-24.jpg

Label Text:
The subjects of these exceptional eighteenth-century portraits (this one, and Hannah Aldrich Harwood [Mrs. John Harwood, 1704–1794], AC 2007.25) are maternal ancestors of the brothers and Amherst College alumni who donated the portraits to the Mead. These canvases are not only portraits of known individuals but together also constitute a portrait of life in eighteenth-century Massachusetts, where John and Hannah Harwood spent their lives.

Portraits, the most popular type of paintings in colonial America, were commissioned by their subjects as status symbols. The sitter’s attributes—the objects they hold—represent what they considered important to their good character. While Hannah holds a delicate knitting project in her lap as a sign of her domesticity, her husband holds the Holy Bible as an indication of his religiosity. During the Harwoods’ lifetime, the American colonies experienced their first major religious revival, propelled forward by Evangelicalism, a new religious movement characterized in part by its emphasis on the Gospels. Whether or not the Harwoods subscribed to the tenets of Evangelicalism, they would certainly have been aware of this religious fervor; Jonathan Edwards, an early evangelical leader, was active throughout Massachusetts.

The chairs upon which the couple sit—likely a banister-backed or slat-backed armchair and a matching side chair—are also revealing. Crafted in a style popular at the time, these chairs were likely made in nearby Boston, the epicenter of American furniture production through the eighteenth century.

Interestingly, the artist or canvas preparer constructed each of these canvases from multiple pieces patchworked together, providing modern viewers with a glimpse of the eighteenth-century painter’s craft as well.

MD, 2013

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2007.24

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.

1 Related Objects

2007-25.jpg
AC 2007.25
Unknown
Hannah Aldrich Harwood (Mrs. John Harwood, 1704-1794)
before 1788
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