Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, Raphael (c. 1770): Art, History and Details

Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, Raphael (c. 1770) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Benjamin West (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, 1738–1820).

The work and its context

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

West was the first American artist to study in Italy, where he spent three years before permanently settling in London. He so admired the artistic ideals of the Italian Renaissance master Raphael that he named his eldest son after him, and he imitated Raphael’s celebrated Madonna of the Chair when composing this tender double portrait of his wife and child.

Object facts

• Title: Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, Raphael
• Date: c. 1770
• Creator attribution: Benjamin West (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, 1738–1820)
• Culture: America
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 88 x 87.5 x 9 cm (34 5/8 x 34 7/16 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 66.5 x 66.3 cm (26 3/16 x 26 1/8 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1927.393

A detail from the museum

Born in colonial America, West eventually became a court painter to George III of England.

Collection credit

The Charles W. Harkness Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Bequests of Mary Warden Harkness," Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 15 (February 1928): 43-50.
• Benjamin West, Series IV. Inventory cards, 1859-1971, M. Knoedler & Co. Records, box 127, Getty Research Institute.
• The Connoisseur (Feb. 1909): 115

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.