The museum’s portrait was painted in 1762, at the peak of the artist’s abilities. The previous year Hesselius had obtained the prestigious commission to paint the portraits of the four children of Benedict Calvert, 1761 (Baltimore Museum of Art). Having begun his career under the stylistic influence of Robert Feke, he had by this point come under the influence of John Wollaston (active 1736-1767), who then was working in the mid-Atlantic region. In his mature work a sculptural feeling for clear forms and volumes recalls the work of Feke. The head, for instance, is isolated as a distinct form, high on a thin neck, its shapes slightly simplified and clarified. The heavy, lidded, almond eyes betray the example of Wollaston, as do the decorative elaboration of lace and extensive patterning of highlights in the drapery. More his own is Hesselius’s use of strong color, in this case a brilliant blue in the dress and bright pink in the shawl, echoed in the high color of the face. The museum’s painting is exceptionally well preserved for the work of Hesselius and consequently unusually impressive. The subject was born in 1742 or 1743, the daughter of Samuel Chew III of Anne Arundel County and his wife Sarah Lock. The museum’s painting is one of four portraits of members of the Chew family executed by Hesselius in 1762. One is a portrait of Elizabeth’s mother, another is of Elizabeth’s brother, Samuel Lloyd Chew (both unlocated), and the fourth is another version of the portrait of Elizabeth (Brooklyn Museum). The other version is smaller (28 3/8 x 25 1/8 inches), and only a bust-length, with Elizabeth Smith wearing a silver dress, with blue bow, and chocolate-colored shawl and holding a sprig of flowers in a slightly different gesture. In 1939 the museum’s painting was the only one of this group of four not in the collection of Samuel Claggett Chew of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The fact that the museum’s painting descended through Mrs. Smith’s family rather than the Chew family suggests the possibility that it was commissioned separately by Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Since Elizabeth Chew was married on February 11, 1762, it is possible that the present painting was a marriage portrait. Her first husband was John Hamilton Smith, a resident and plantation owner of Calvert County; they had two daughters, Elizabeth Chew and Mary. Her half-sister, Mary, married a Dr. Alexander Hamilton Smith in 1767. (There was a prominent Scottish physician of the same name living in Annapolis in the 1740s.) Records for Saint James’s (Old Herring Creek) Parish show a large family with the name of Smith living there in the early eighteenth century. Elizabeth Chew Smith later married a man named Sprigg. It is not known whether this second marriage produced issue. She died sometime after 1800.

Although the thirteen colonies that would constitute the United States of America were founded by several different nations, by 1763 (the end of the French and Indian Wars), the British controlled most of North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. In many respects the American colonies functioned like an English province. Culturally they were largely British; from interior design and dress to painted portraits, wealthy colonists emulated the London fashions of the period. However, there was often a time lag, as examples of the finest British furniture, household goods, and decorative items such as paintings had to be transported across the ocean.

At first the only trained artists and artisans in the colonies were emigrants from London who thought fame would be easier to achieve in the less competitive atmosphere of Boston or Philadelphia. By the end of the eighteenth century, this traffic had reversed somewhat, as American artists went to London for their training. Portraits were the most popular genre, since British citizens everywhere wanted visual records of their families and heroes. Historical and literary subjects, such as those by Benjamin West, were usually only painted in London; their appreciation required a more educated audience than was the case with many colonists. The pervasive influence of Britain would continue to affect the development of culture in the United States long after the Revolutionary War had severed the Crown’s political authority.

• About the Era. LACMA collections online. Retrieved on 12/30/2009 from http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mweb/aa/abouttheera/early_american_paintings_abouttheera.asp
• Fort, Ilene Susan and Michael Quick.  American Art:  a Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.
• Carbone, Teresa A. American Paintings in the Brooklyn Museum: Artists Born by 1876. Vol.2. London: D Giles Limited, 2006.