Elizabeth Grant Bankson Beatty (Mrs. James Beatty) and Her Daughter Susan
Joshua Johnson
c. 1805
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
82.9 × 72.8 cm (32 5/8 × 28 5/8 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
150054
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Joshua Johnson portrayed his fashionably dressed sitter Elizabeth Beatty 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 the artist’s portraits. Johnson was the first known Black painter to gain professional recognition in the United States. Listed in the 1816 Baltimore city directory as a “free householder of ...