Portrait of the Enoch Edwards Family

Gallery 103, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

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Portrait of the Enoch Edwards Family

1779

Henry Benbridge (American, 1743–1812)

Enoch Edwards (1751–1802) was a Philadelphian who trained as a physician and served as a surgeon in the Continental Army (the colonial army formed during the American Revolutionary War). This group portrait commemorates his marriage to the half-sister of Henry Benbridge, who painted the scene. Benbridge depicts himself, along with Dr. Edwards’s sister, on the couple’s left, clothing the bride in a luxurious form of imaginary dress employed by many eighteenth-century artists. Benbridge had traveled to Rome and London to study but returned to his native Philadelphia in 1770. A composition of this type, portraying an informal gathering of family or friends, is called a “conversation piece.”

Gallery 103, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

Object Details

Title:

Portrait of the Enoch Edwards Family

Date:

1779

Artist:

Henry Benbridge (American, 1743–1812)

Medium:

Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

30 x 23 11/16 inches (76.2 x 60.2 cm)

Classification:

Paintings

Credit Line:

Gift of Miss Fannie Ringgold Carter, 1949

Accession Number:

1949-53-1

Geography:

Made in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, North and Central America

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Gallery 103, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

Main Building

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