Charles Apthorp
1748
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 127 × 101.5 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-109065
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 …
Provenance
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust, 1919.1006
Registry history
- 1748 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
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