Hetty Benbridge

Hetty Benbridge (died 1776) (also known as Esther Benbridge, Hetty Sage, or Letticia Benbridge) was an American painter of miniature portraits.[1]

Biography

Esther "Hetty" Benbridge (née Sage) was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She studied with painter Charles Willson Peale.[1] Peale's influence can be seen in the long oval faces of her portrait subjects.[2]

She married fellow portrait painter Henry Benbridge in early 1772 and they had one son, also named Henry, who was born on December 13, 1772.[3] In April 1773 she moved with her mother and the baby to join her husband in Charleston, South Carolina, where he had established a portrait studio. She was mentioned in the April 5 edition of the South Carolina Gazette as "a very ingenious Miniature Paintress" who had arrived that week from Philadelphia.[1] Hetty Benbridge is thought to have died in 1776.[4]

There are ten extant miniatures attributed to her, although none of the attributed paintings bear her signature. All are painted in watercolor on ivory and set in small gold lockets.[5] Eight of the portraits are of women, including eighteen-year-old Anne Wragg Ferguson, and one depicts a child. The tenth portrait is of a South Carolinian man, John Poage.[1]

References
  1. Rubinstein, Charlotte Striefer (1982). American Women Artists. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall & Co. p. 26.
  2. Appleby, Joyce; Chang, Eileen; Goodwin, Neva (2015-07-17). Encyclopedia of Women in American History. Routledge. ISBN 9781317471615.
  3. Stewart, Robert G.; Boswell, James (1970). "The Portraits of Henry Benbridge". American Art Journal. 2 (2): 58–71. doi:10.2307/1593897. JSTOR 1593897.
  4. Museum, Cincinnati Art; Aronson, Julie; Wieseman, Marjorie E. (2006). Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait Miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300115802.
  5. Rutledge, Anna Wells (1949). "Artists in the Life of Charleston. Through Colony and State from Restoration to Reconstruction". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 39 (2): 101–250. doi:10.2307/1005623. hdl:2027/mdp.39015010991324. JSTOR 1005623.
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