Elizabeth Grant Bankson Beatty (Mrs. James Beatty) and Her Daughter Susan

c. 1805

Joshua Johnson
American, c. 1763–after 1825

Joshua Johnson was the first known African American painter to gain professional recognition in the United States. Listed in the 1816 Baltimore city directory as a “free householder of Colour,” he had been freed by his enslaver (and father) around 1782 after apprenticing as a blacksmith. Described as “self-taught” in a newspaper advertisement, Johnson attracted local patrons for his portraits from the city’s artisan and middle-class families.

Elizabeth Beatty is fashionably dressed, wearing a circlet of glass beads that accentuates her brown hair and gray eyes. The child’s clothes are equally elegant; she sports a high-waisted, white-muslin gown and holds a brightly colored strawberry, a delicacy often featured in Johnson’s portraits.

Status: On View, Gallery 169
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Joshua Johnson
Title: Elizabeth Grant Bankson Beatty (Mrs. James Beatty) and Her Daughter Susan
Place: Baltimore (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: c. 1805
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 81.3 × 71.1 cm (38 × 32 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Robin and Tim Reynolds and Jill Burnside Zeno; Bulley and Andrews, Edna Graham, Love Galleries, Mrs. Eric Oldberg, Ratcliffe Foundation, and Quinn E. Delaney funds; Walter Aitken, Dr. Julian Archie, Mr. and Mrs. Perry Herst, Jay W. McGreevy, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Puth, Stone Foundation, and Mr. and Mrs. Frederick G. Wacker Jr. endowment funds; through prior acquisitions of the George F. Harding Collection and Ruth Helgeson
Reference Number: 1998.315
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/150054/manifest.json

Andrea D. Barnwell and Kirsten P. Buick, “A Portfolio of Works by African American Artists Continuing the Dialogue: A Work in Progress,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1999), 185.
Andrew J. Walker, “Portfolio,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1999), 189, no. 1.
Margaret Rose Vendryes, “Race Identity/ Identifying Race: Robert S. Duncanson and Nineteenth–Century American Painting, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 27, 1 (2001), 82–99, fig. 3.

Baltimore, Maryland Historical Society, Joshua Johnson: Freeman and Early American Portrait Painter, Sept. 26, 1987–Jan. 3, 1988; Williamsburg, Virginia, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Jan. 17–May 15, 1988; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, June 18–Aug. 25, 1988; Stamford, Connecticut, Whitney Museum of American Art (branch), Sept. 9–Nov. 9, 1988, cat. 20.

Elizabeth Grant Bankson Beatty (previously Elizabeth Grant Bankson Wilmans) (1775–1851) and James Beatty (1770–1851), Baltimore, MD; by descent through the family to Hugh Purviance King (1872–1966), Long Island City, NY, by 1966; by descent to daughter Frances Cary Montgomery (born King) (1911–1988); by descent to private collection, Tennessee, by 1998 [according to Washburn Gallery, New York]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1998.

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