John Banister

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John Banister

Artist Robert Feke (American, 1706/7-1752)

Date1748

DimensionsFrame: 58 × 50 × 1 3/4 in. (147.3 × 127 × 4.4 cm)
Canvas: 50 9/16 × 40 9/16 in. (128.4 × 103 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

1945.16

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 29

Label TextRobert Feke is often considered to be the first significant American portraitist born in this country, rather than Britain. He emerged in the early 1740s as a leading portrait painter in Boston and in Newport, Rhode Island. Feke portrays John Banister (1707–1767) of Newport as a man of prominence and affluence, wearing an elegant white satin brocade waistcoat, velvet jacket, and fashionable powdered wig. He gestures to a landscape with a harbor in the background, reference both to his status as a landowner and as a merchant trader and shipbuilder. The ship also points to another way Banister made his wealth: as a slave trader, prospering in the triangle trade of enslaved humans, cash crops, and manufactured goods (especially glassware, pottery, and textiles) between West Africa, the Caribbean, and New England. Banister owned enslaved Africans himself—documents have revealed some of the men’s imposed slave names: Anthony, Tony, Mingo, and Cato. The triangle trade, with enslaved Africans and their descendants at its core, was largely responsible for the wealth of the Colonies, wealth that made it possible for Colonists to own the luxury goods displayed in this gallery.Published ReferencesBanister, J., Waste Book 1746-1749 entry dated Dec. 22, 1748, p. 369 (MS., Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence).

Foote, H., Robert Feke, Cambridge, 1930, pp. 66, 164-165, repr. opp. p. 164.

Bolton, T., and H. Binsse, "Robert Feke, First Painter to Colonial Aristocracy," The Antiquarian, XV, Oct. 1930, p. 37, repr.

Burroughs, C., "Mrs. Josiah Martin," Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, XXIV, Dec. 1945, pp. 64-65.

Flexner, J., "Rober Feke," Art Bulletin, XXVIII, Sep. 1946, p. 199.

Smith, Albert, Robert Feke, Native Colonial Painter, Huntington, New York, Hecksher Art Museum,1946, repr. opp. p. 11.

Flexner, J., "Chronology of Feke's Pictures," Magazine of Art, XL, Jan. 1947, p. 36.

Mooz, R., "The Art of Robert Feke," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1970, pp. 146-147, 148n., 161, n. 213, 229, pl. 68.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, p. 48, pl. 2.

Strickler, Susan E., "American Paintings at the Toledo Museum of Art," Antiques, vol. 116, no. 5, Nov. 1979, p. 1110, 1152, repr. (col.) pl. I.

Saunders, Richard H. and Miles, Ellen G., American Colonial Portaits 1700-1776, Washington, 1987, p. 169. [not in exhibition].

Craven, Wayne, Colonial American Portraiture, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 291, 292, fig. 137.

American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, New York, 1991, vol. 1, p. 96.

Hibbard, Shirley G., Rock Hall: a Narrative History, New York, 1997, p. 30, fig. 32, left.

Freund, Joan Barzilay and Leigh Keno, "The Making and Marketing of Boston Seating Furniture in the Late Baroque Style," American Furniture, 1998, p. 35, fig. 54.

Conforti, Michael, et al, The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings, Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2006, no. 134, fig. 281, p. 327.

Desrosiers, Marian Mathison, "Private Lives and Public Spaces: Newport Merchant John Bannister and Colonial Consumers," Newport History: Journal of the Newport Historical Society, vol. 83, Spring 2014, no. 270, repr. p. vi.

Kane, Patricia E., et al., Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650-1830 New Haven, Yale University Press, 2016, p. 43-44, repr. (col.) fig 8 p. 44

Exhibition HistoryNew York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Robert Feke, 1946, no. 17.

Huntington (NY), Heckscher Art Museum, Robert Feke, Native Colonial Painter, Nov. 2-Nov. 10, 1946.

New York, Wildenstein Gallery, Landmarks in American Art, 1670-1950, Feb. 26-Mar. 28,1953, no. 3.

New Haven, CT, Yale University Art Gallery, Early American Elegance: Rhode Island Furniture, August 19, 2016-January 8, 2017.