Portrait of Richard Gridley

c. 1745

Considered the leading portraitist in the American colonies in the early eighteenth century, Smibert's reputation was established when he painted The Bermuda Group, 1728, a portrait of Dean George Berkeley and his entourage. Smibert, an aspiring portrait painter, accompanied Berkeley and others to Newport, Rhode Island, where they waited for funds from England to support their venture to Bermuda to establish a school and convert the "savage" Native Americans. The funds never arrived, but Smibert enjoyed a long busy career in the colonies, reaping the rewards of his academic training in England at Sir Godfrey Kneller's Queen Street Academy.
Smibert's subject, Richard Gridley (1710-1796) of Boston, achieved fame as a military engineer in the French and Indian Wars, in particular at the Siege of Louisbourg in 1745. Gridley went on to side with the colonies in the Revolutionary War and was made chief engineer of the New England Provincial Army and later of the Continental Army. He is considered American's "First Chief Engineer" by the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers. He is buried in Canton, Massachusetts.

Boston

Oil on canvas

frame: 35 in x 30 in; canvas: 30 in x 25 in

Anonymous gift

1995.005.001