Sarah Ursula Rose
1756
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
29 x 23 3/8 in. (73.7 x 59.4 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1964
Accession Number
64.309.2
Tags
Art Historical Context
Benjamin West's *Sarah Ursula Rose* (1756) is a charming early portrait capturing the poised likeness of its namesake subject, likely a young woman from colonial Pennsylvania. Painted when West was just 18, this oil on canvas work (29 x 23 3/8 in.) exemplifies the artist's precocious talent before he achieved international fame as a leading Neoclassical painter in England. Housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing, it reflects mid-18th-century American portraiture, where such pieces served as family heirlooms, preserving social status and personal identity amid the growing colon...
About the Artist
Benjamin West · 1738–1820
Benjamin West, born on October 10, 1738, in Springfield, Pennsylvania, emerged as one of the most influential painters of his era despite being entirely self-taught. Growing up in a Quaker family in colonial America, West displayed prodigious talent from childhood, creating portraits and religious scenes with materials gifted by local patrons. By his late teens, he had garnered enough support to t...