Mrs. Henry Bromfield (Margaret Fayerweather)
John Greenwood
(American, 1727–1792)
about 1749
Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas
Dimensions92.39 x 65.72 cm (36 3/8 x 25 7/8 in.)
Credit LineEmily L. Ainsley Fund
Accession number62.173
On View
Not on viewClassificationsPaintings
Collections
Greenwood, one of the first native-born American painters, received his initial training from Bostonian Thomas Johnston, a heraldic painter and engraver. Johnston no doubt introduced Greenwood to the British mezzotints that served most colonial portraitists as patterns for their images. Here, Greenwood employed one of the most popular gestures of eighteenth-century female portraiture-lifting a flower from the lap and holding it at the breast.
ProvenanceThe artist; to Bromfield family; to Mrs. I.H.T. Blanchard, Harvard, Mass., 1872, granddaughter of the sitter; Miss Margaret Bromfield Slade, Boston; Mrs. Henry E. Warner, South Lincoln, Mass., 1943; Mrs. Jean-Frederic Wagniere (Margaret Warner), 1955; to MFA, 1962, purchase.
John Singer Sargent
