Tench Francis

Robert Feke

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Feke emerged during the 1740s as the most gifted native-born artist working in the Northeast. The subject of this portrait, the Irish-born Tench Francis (1690?–1758), received legal training in England and emigrated to America in about 1720. He became the attorney general of Pennsylvania in 1741 and commissioned this portrait five years later. The picture is important as one of the few signed and dated works proving that Feke was active in Philadelphia in 1746. Thinly painted in elegant Rococo pastel colors but reflecting Quaker values in the sitter’s modest attire, the work represents Francis at the height of his career, as a pillar of society.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art