Lot 51: RALPH EARL 1751-1801

PORTRAIT OF AN OXFORD DOCTOR OF DIVINITY

measurements note
125 by 100 cm., 49 1/4 by 39 1/4 in.

Three-quarter length, seated in his library, wearing academic robes

Signed l.l.:Earl Pinx^t 1784

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Bequeathed to the present owner circa 1920

NOTE

The American artist Ralph Earl was born in Shrewsbury, Massachussetts. He worked as a portrait painter in New Haven where he was greatly influenced by the portraits of John Singleton Copley. He was a loyalist so in 1778 he fled to England, working first in Norfolk and then in the studio of Benjamin West. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1783 and 1784. In 1785, after the American Revolution, he returned to America, settling in New York. He built up a substantial pratice, becoming one of the first American artists to travel to Niagara Falls.