Charles Apthorp (1748): Art, History and Details

Charles Apthorp (1748) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Robert Feke (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, c. 1707–c. 1752).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Called “the greatest merchant on this Continent” in his obituary, Apthorp helped transform Boston into one of the key commercial centers in the American colonies. When the fashionable painter Robert Feke came to town, Apthorp commissioned this elegantly tailored and confidently posed likeness of himself. The sailing ship in the distant background symbolizes Apthorp’s deep financial interests in the Atlantic trade, which included not only textiles, wine, and guns, but also enslaved people. In fact, the slave trade and its attendant commerce comprised a significant portion of colonial Boston’s economy until the decades after the Revolutionary War, when anti-slavery attitudes in New England gained momentum.

Object facts

• Title: Charles Apthorp
• Date: 1748
• Creator attribution: Robert Feke (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, c. 1707–c. 1752)
• Culture: America
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 141.5 x 117.5 x 7.5 cm (55 11/16 x 46 1/4 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 127 x 101.5 cm (50 x 39 15/16 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1919.1006

A detail from the museum

Much remains unknown regarding artist Robert Feke’s life, including his birth and death dates.

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William M., "Superb Art Display Marks Cleveland Museum's 20th Anniversary," Art Digest 10 (July 1, 1936).
• L. P. "Portrait of Charles Apthorp by Robert Feke." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6, no. 5 (1919): 79-80.
• "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6, no. 6 (1919): 113-14.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.