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Drawing on original manuscript sources, Maxey has produced a persuasive study of a late-18th-century portrait and its subject. He has focused attention on an enigmatic painting, and the person portrayed in it—a woman of talent and verve, whose life has remained undeservedly obscure. Elizabeth Willing Powel presided over a salon, spoke her mind freely, and maintained, for a period of 40 years, extensive, illuminating correspondences with a range of recipients. She was the trusted confidante of the country’s first president, whom she did not hesitate to instruct on where duty summoned him. At a critical moment, the Philadelphia painter, Matthew Pratt, was commissioned to capture on canvas the grief she experienced when the yellow fever epidemic that ravaged Philadelphia claimed her husband. This publication unveils the rich and complex story of a key Early American Republic figure almost lost to history.
Price: $29.99
Pages: 106
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Imprint: The American Philosophical Society Press
Series: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
Publication Date:
January 1, 2006
Trim Size: 10.00 X 7.00 in
ISBN: 9780871699640
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
ART / Subjects & Themes / Portraits
"Maxey has found a rendering of the indomitable Elizabeth Willing Powel to be particularly illuminating about the experiences behind that impassive face, as a mother whose sons died early in childhood, a woman who spent much of her life a widow, and a talented and influential person. … Maxey uses Powel’s own correspondence and other primary documents to discern how that particular rendering, a funeral allegory, made its way back to the Powel manse and expressed her grief as no other way could."
"[T]his well-written, thoroughly researched, beautifully produced volume on Elizabeth Willing Powel’s life is especially welcome…A must-read for anyone interested in the history of women and families in Philadelphia during the revolutionary and early republic periods, and an essential addition to the staff reading lists of any museum that hopes to go beyond the superficial into a true understanding of how objects can inform us about the past."
— George W. Boudreau
"[T]his well-written, thoroughly researched, beautifully produced volume on Elizabeth Willing Powel’s life is especially welcome…A must-read for anyone interested in the history of women and families in Philadelphia during the revolutionary and early republic periods, and an essential addition to the staff reading lists of any museum that hopes to go beyond the superficial into a true understanding of how objects can inform us about the past."
— George W. Boudreau
Jonathan R. Dull is an American historian with specialization in diplomatic and naval history of the United States and France during the colonial period, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution through the end of the First French Empire. A retired senior associate editor of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin series, his publications include The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774-1787 (1975) and Franklin the Diplomat: The French Mission (1982).