Lot 180: Joseph Blackburn (Anglo/American, c. 1700-1780) Portrait of Colonel Benjamin Pollard (1696-1756). Unsigned, identified on a partial ...

Joseph Blackburn (Anglo/American, c. 1700-1780)

Portrait of Colonel Benjamin Pollard (1696-1756).
Unsigned, identified on a partial label affixed to the reverse.
Oil on canvas, 33 1/2 x 26 in., framed.
Condition: Craquelure, lined, retouch.

N.B. The sitter descended from a Boston military family. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, William Pollard, who was a 17th-century member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, Benjamin Pollard became the fourth sergeant of the Artillery Company in 1726. His uncle, Edward Winslow, was a sheriff of Suffolk County, and Pollard assumed his position for thirteen years, until 1756. (1)

1. Oliver Ayer Roberts, History of the Military Company of the Massachusetts, now called the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts: 1637-1888, (New York: A. Mudge & Son), 1895, p. 424.