Mrs. David Chesebrough

Mrs. David Chesebrough

Joseph Blackburn

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mrs. Chesebrough, born Margaret Sylvester, was the wife of a wealthy and prominent merchant in Newport, Rhode Island. The couple later lived in Stonington, Connecticut. Blackburn seems to have been trained in England before coming to work on this side of the Atlantic. He apparently spent a couple of years as a portraitist in Bermuda before establishing himself in New England. This likeness, dated 1754, is one of his first American works. A decade later he was back in England, presumably supplanted in American colonial painting by the young and rapidly developing Copley, who was becoming a major figure. The Museum's portrait shows Blackburn's skill in rendering drapery and details of costume, and in making his sitters look fashionable and elegant.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.