#john smibert

[soundgrammar]

John Smibert, A Member of the Livingston Family, ca. 1740, oil on canvas, 30 1⁄8 x 25 x 1 3⁄8 in. (76.4 x 63.4 x 3.6 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Amirkhan children in memory of their mother, Babette Keeler Amirkhan, Educator, and Livingston Family Descendant, 2006.11

[oldsardens]

John Smibert - Richard Bill

[treasuresfromthearchives]

Mrs. Francis Brinley and Her Son Francis

John Smibert American, Scottish 1729

"Born Deborah Lyde, Mrs. Francis Brinley (1698–1761) was the daughter of Edward and Catherine Lyde and the granddaughter of Judge Nathaniel Byfield (see portrait by Smibert, 24.109.87). When she married Francis Brinley in 1718, she was a woman of wealth and social prominence. An entry in Smibert's notebook dated May 1729 identifies the infant as the Brinley's son Francis (1729–1816). Mrs. Brinley holds a sprig of orange blossoms, a gesture which may have been taken from an eighteenth-century print by Sir Peter Lely. The white orange blossom symbolizes both marriage and purity, while the fruit, a sign of fertility, emphasizes Mrs. Brinley's role as a mother. Orange trees, although fashionable in Europe, were expensive rarities in the colonies. The presence of one here reinforces the sitter's wealth. Smibert also painted a portrait of Mrs. Brinley's husband (62.79.1)."

[history-of-fashion]

1726-1730 John Smibert - Sarah Middlecott Boucher (Mrs. Louis Boucher)

(Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library)

[history-of-fashion]

ab. 1740 John Smibert - Benjamin Colman

(New Britain Museum of American Art)

[careful-disorder]

John Smibert, The Bermuda Group (Dean Berkeley and His Entourage)

“There shall be sung another golden age / The rise of empire and of arts / … Westward the course of empire takes its way.” George Berkeley

[rabbitcruiser]

The Faneuil Hall opened to public on September 24, 1742.  

[quo-usque-tandem]

Daniel, Peter, and Andrew Oliver by John Smibert