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Shown from the knees up, a light-skinned man and woman are seated side-by-side on grassy rise in a landscape in this horizontal portrait painting. To our left, the man leans heavily toward the woman to our right, propped on one elbow near her hip. She sits upright, resting one hand over his forearm and wrist. The clean-shaven man looks at her with blue eyes under gray, arched brows. He has a straight nose, round cheeks, a hint of a double chin, and his pale pink lips are closed in a slight smile. He wears a forest-green coat, a white waistcoat embroidered with golden yellow, a white shirt and ruffled tie, and buff-colored breaches. His right hand, to our left, is propped loosely against his hip. Next to that hand, a green parrot stands with its wings lifted as it turns its head back over its body. The man’s other hand, near the woman, holds a long, wooden telescope. The woman looks off into the distance to our left with gray eyes. She has smooth cheeks, a delicate nose, and her pink lips also curl in a faint smile. A strand of pearls weaves through the brown hair loosely piled on her head and through the thick curls that fall over her shoulders. Her white dress is loosely draped around her body. An ocean-blue sash with gold stripes and fringe wraps around her waist, and a sprig of pink flowers is tucked into a fold at her neckline. She holds at least three peaches and a stem of leaves in her lap, and a spray of purple clover blossoms in her other hand, which rests lightly over the man’s forearm. A swath of white fabric, perhaps from her skirt, wraps up and over the man’s thigh, closer to her. Behind the woman, a tree grows on a low hill along the right edge of the canvas and off the top. The landscape opens into an expansive vista to our left with spindly trees growing in a low meadow that leads back to a body of water in the deep distance. Minuscule in scale, tiny boats and buildings line the water’s edge near the horizon. A few thin, silvery gray and petal-pink clouds skim across the pale blue sky.
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Shown from the knees up, a light-skinned man and woman are seated side-by-side on grassy rise in a landscape in this horizontal portrait painting. To our left, the man leans heavily toward the woman to our right, propped on one elbow near her hip. She sits upright, resting one hand over his forearm and wrist. The clean-shaven man looks at her with blue eyes under gray, arched brows. He has a straight nose, round cheeks, a hint of a double chin, and his pale pink lips are closed in a slight smile. He wears a forest-green coat, a white waistcoat embroidered with golden yellow, a white shirt and ruffled tie, and buff-colored breaches. His right hand, to our left, is propped loosely against his hip. Next to that hand, a green parrot stands with its wings lifted as it turns its head back over its body. The man’s other hand, near the woman, holds a long, wooden telescope. The woman looks off into the distance to our left with gray eyes. She has smooth cheeks, a delicate nose, and her pink lips also curl in a faint smile. A strand of pearls weaves through the brown hair loosely piled on her head and through the thick curls that fall over her shoulders. Her white dress is loosely draped around her body. An ocean-blue sash with gold stripes and fringe wraps around her waist, and a sprig of pink flowers is tucked into a fold at her neckline. She holds at least three peaches and a stem of leaves in her lap, and a spray of purple clover blossoms in her other hand, which rests lightly over the man’s forearm. A swath of white fabric, perhaps from her skirt, wraps up and over the man’s thigh, closer to her. Behind the woman, a tree grows on a low hill along the right edge of the canvas and off the top. The landscape opens into an expansive vista to our left with spindly trees growing in a low meadow that leads back to a body of water in the deep distance. Minuscule in scale, tiny boats and buildings line the water’s edge near the horizon. A few thin, silvery gray and petal-pink clouds skim across the pale blue sky.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming

Charles Willson Peale

Date
1788
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 106 x 152.5 cm (41 3/4 x 60 1/16 in.) framed: 125.1 x 171.5 x 7 cm (49 1/4 x 67 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1966.10.1
Credit line
Gift of Morris Schapiro
Time span
1776 to 1800
Department
CAB
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • American
  • family
  • portrait
  • American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century
  • Laming, Benjamin
  • Laming, Eleanor
Provenance

Mary Ridgely Palmer [Mrs. Henry Clay Palmer, 1852-1932], Baltimore.[1] Luke Vincent Lockwood [1872-1951] and his wife, Alice Gardner Burnell Lockwood [1874/1875-1954], Greenwich, Connecticut, by 1926;[2] (their sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 13-15 May 1954, no. 455).[3] Morris Schapiro [1882/1883-1969], Baltimore;[4] gift 1966 to NGA. [1] The portrait is not listed in Mr. Laming's will; he left his property, unitemized, to his wife (will, proved 14 December 1792, Maryland State Archives, Will Book 5, 68-69; copy in NGA curatorial file). Nor is it in Mrs. Laming's will or inventory (will, proved 24 October 1829; Maryland State Archives, Will Book 13, 294-297; inventory, 22 April 1831; Maryland State Archives, Will Book 39, 361-374; copies of both in NGA curatorial file). It probably came to Mrs. Palmer, the great-granddaughter of Mrs. Laming's brother John Ridgely [d.1814], through Ridgely's son Edward [1791-1852], who was Mrs. Laming's heir. Genealogical information on the Lamings was provided by Lynne Hastings of the Hampton National Historic site, Towson, Maryland, and in Edward C. Papenfuse _et al_., _A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789_, 2 vols. (Baltimore and London, 1985), 2:681-691. On Mrs. Palmer see Henry Fletcher Powell, _Tercentenary History of Maryland_, 4 vols. (Chicago and Baltimore, 1925), 4: 717, and her obituary in _The New York Times_, 18 March 1932, 21. [2] Mrs. Lockwood informed the Frick Art Reference Library of their ownership of the portrait on 18 March 1926 (letter from Helen Sanger, 24 August 1990, in NGA curatorial file). For the Lockwoods' dates see _Who Was Who in America_, (Chicago, 1951-1960), 3 (1963): 526 (Luke Vincent Lockwood) and _The New York Times_, 6 March 1954 (Mrs. Lockwood's obituary). The Lockwoods were collectors of American art and probably bought the painting from Mrs. Palmer. [3] Parke-Bernet Galleries, _XVII and XVIII Century American Furniture and Paintings, The Celebrated Collection Formed by the Late Mr. and Mrs. Luke Vincent Lockwood_, [13-15 May 1954], New York, 1954, 128, repro. 129. [4] Shapiro's obituary in _The New York Times_, 4 May 1969, identified him as the founder of the Boston Metals Company, Baltimore, and owner of the Laurel Race Course.

NGA object ID 50684. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.