Lot 166: JOHN WOLLASTON (1706-1805)

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT AMERICAN COLLECTOR
PORTRAIT OF THOMAS WILLING
In what appears to be the original frame; painted circa 1758.

John Wollaston who worked in London as early as 1736, came to this country in 1749. He spent the next ten years traveling through the middle Atlantic colonies and painting more than three hundred portraits. He was in New York City from 1749 to 1752, in Maryland from 1753 to 1754, in Virginia approximately 1755 to 1757, and in Philadelphia in 1758 and early 1759. In 1759 he was employed by the British East India Company and sent to Bengal. He is recorded as being in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1765 and sailing from there to London in May 1767. (Philadelphia, Three Centuries of American Art. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1976. p. 53).

Thomas Willing (1731-1821) was the favorite brother of his sister Dorothy. Son of a prominent Phildelphia family, Thomas became a delegate to the Continental Congress of 1775 and 1776 and a financial backer of the revolution. Gilbert Stuart also painted the portrait of this distinguished patriot.
Oil on canvas
30 1/8 in. by 25 in.

Philadelphia Collection XVII, Philadelphia Portraiture: 1740-1910, November 1982, plate #7.

Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia, 1982