Charles Apthorp
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust
Museum

Charles Apthorp

1748
Robert Feke (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, c. 1707–c. 1752) visual detail
ArtistRobert Feke (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, c. 1707–c. 1752)
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Market Intelligence

Observed sale facts, comparable evidence, artist index history and modeled research remain separate.

Public evidence
Last known price—0 matched observed sales
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Observed sales0
Artist index—
No rights-cleared normalized observed sale is attached to this artwork. No synthetic price history is shown.
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Provenance

Public
Provenance event

Family of the sitter; To Sarah Apthorp Cunningham Bond, Cambridge, MA (d. 1914); To her son William...

Source provenance text

Family of the sitter; To Sarah Apthorp Cunningham Bond, Cambridge, MA (d. 1914); To her son William Cranch Bond, Malden, MA; Thomas B. Clarke, New York ; The Brook Club, New York.

The Cleveland Museum of Artconfidence 100%

Exhibitions

Public
Source exhibition text

The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936). The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941). American Portraits. Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH (organizer) (February 23-March 18, 1956). 200th Birthday of the Apthorp Mansion. Fogg Art Museum/Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (organizer) (October 17-November 5, 1960). American Realists. Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Canada (organizer) (March 11-April 23, 1961). Paul Revere's Boston, 1735 - 1818. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (organizer) (April 18-October 12, 1975). Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1909-14. Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition (26 June-4 October 1936) illus. cat. no. 26, plate II, listed p. 23. Oberlin, Ohio, Allen Memorial Art Museum, The Arts in America in the Eighteenth Century (May, 1946), illus. cat. no. 5, p. 70, listed p. 68; see Bulletin of the Allen Memorial Art Museum (May, 1946) vol. 3, no. 3 for catalogue. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Robert Feke (8-30 October 1946); traveled to Huntington, Long, Island, Heckscher Art Museum (2-10 November 1946); to Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (27 November-22 December 1946) illus. cat. no. 2. [Huntington, New York, Heckscher Art Museum, Robert Feke: Native Colonial Painter (2-10 November, 1946), they had their own, second catalogue; illus. p. 26. Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Likeness of America: 1680-1820 (5 July-4 September 1949) illus. cat. no. 25, plate 7. Palm Beach, Florida, Society of the Four Arts, Plymouth Rock to the Armory (9 February-5 March, 1950) cat. no. 3, not illus. Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, Two Hundred Years of American Painting (8 March-3 April 1955), illus. cat. no. 3, plate 3. Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum, Recent Rediscoveries in American Painting (3 October-6 November, 1955), cat. no. 38. Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 200th Birthday Celebration of the Apthorp Mansion (17 October-5 November 1960) Hamilton, Ontario, Art Gallery of Hamilton, American Realists: An Exhibition of American Paintings from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (11 March-23 April 1961) illus. cat. no. 20. Peoria, IL, Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, 200 Years of American Painting (27 March-28 April 1965) Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Paul Revere's Boston: 1735-1818 (18 April-21 October 1975) illus. cat. no. 44, p. 43 listed p. 220; also included pp. 27-57.

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Sourced Overview Evidence

Called “the greatest merchant on this Continent” in his obituary, Apthorp helped transform Boston into one of the key commercial centers in the American colonies. When the fashionable painter Robert Feke came to town, Apthorp commissioned this elegantly tailored and confidently posed likeness of himself. The sailing ship in the distant background symbolizes Apthorp’s deep financial interests in the Atlantic trade, which included not only textiles, wine, and guns, but also enslaved people. In fact, the slave trade and its attendant commerce comprised a significant portion of colonial Boston’s economy until the decades after the Revolutionary War, when anti-slavery attitudes in New England gained momentum.

The Cleveland Museum of Artconfidence 100%

Evidence state

0 observed sales · 0 comparable sales · 1 structured provenance events · 6 structured exhibitions.

Place Of OriginShort DescriptionProvenance TextExhibition HistoryCredit Line