13 facts about Henry Benbridge

Henry Benbridge (October 1743 – February 1812) was an at the forefront American portrait painter. He was born in Philadelphia, the abandoned child of James and Mary (Clark) Benbridge. When he was seven years old, his mother, who had been left a widow, was married to Thomas Gordon, a wealthy Scot. The boy’s artistic skill was encouraged. He made decorative designs for his stepfather’s drawing-room which were much admired. When he was fourteen years passй he may have watched John Wollaston paint Gordon’s portrait. It has been plausibly argued that pubertal Benbridge had recommendation from Wollaston, since his very old known portrait, that of his half-sister Rebecca Gordon, “seems to hark support to Wollaston.” When he was 21, Benbridge was sent to Italy, where he studied past Pompeo Batoni and Anton Raphael Mengs. In 1769, on commission from James Boswell, biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson, he made a portrait of Pasquale Paoli in Corsica which he took to London. It was exhibited (1769) at the Free Society of Artists, and from it three mezzotints were scraped and published like the artist’s state signed “Bembridge.” Like supplementary young Americans he was encouraged by Benjamin West. He wrote, on December 7, 1769, to his stepfather: “Upon my dawn I waited on Mr. West who received me when a sort of brotherly affection, as did my cousin, Mrs. West.” Impelled, apparently, by a sadness to rejoin his family, he left England in 1770, bearing from West the taking into account note of suggestion to Francis Hopkinson: “By Mr. Benbridge you will get these few lines. You will find him an Ingenous player and an normal Companion. His merit in the art must procure him good incouragement and much esteem. I deare say it will come in the works with the child support for you good pleasure to have an ingenous artist resident between you.”

In Philadelphia Benbridge married Hetty Sage and was admitted on January 18, 1771, to connection in the American Philosophical Society, of which Benjamin Franklin was a founder. He painted the large portrait of the Gordon family, with six figures, one of his masterpieces. Suffering, however, from asthma, he sought a more congenial climate and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he succeeded Jeremiah Theus (d. May 18, 1774) as the popular portrait painter of South Carolina. There he made many likenesses of southern men and women, several of which have been popularly ascribed to John Singleton Copley, an player who never painted in the South and who left America in 1774. Around 1800 Benbridge arranged in Norfolk, Virginia, whence he made frequent visits to his indigenous city. At Norfolk he gave to Thomas Sully his first lessons in oil painting. He had previously instructed Thomas Coram of Charleston. Sully describes his master as “a portly man of great address–gentlemanly in his deportment.” Benbridge’s health is said by Hart to have declined in middle age. Dunlap’s avowal that his last years were passed “in difficulty and poverty” has been disputed.

As a technician Benbridge drew well and painted solidly, exhibiting many characteristics of the late Italian masters. His contemporary Charles Fraser (quoted by Dunlap) said that “his shadows were dark and opaque and more within sufficient limits to the historical style.” Hart says “Benbridge was impregnated by the brownish sameness of Batoni’s palette and his shadows were too opaque, and although later he was somewhat emancipated from these errors, all his action belongs to the late Italian school.” His paintings, nevertheless, were notably great in exaltation of their black-and-white values and some of his miniatures are exquisite. His Italianate mode was much appreciated in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern states during his lifetime.