Sarah Kilby

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Sarah Kilby

Artist John Greenwood (American, 1729-1792)

Dateabout 1752

DimensionsFrame: 57 7/8 × 50 × 4 in. (147 × 127 × 10.2 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

1951.296

On View

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

Label TextThe only surviving daughter of wealthy Boston merchant Christopher Kilby and his wife Sarah Clark, Sarah Kilby (1736–1779) received the best education available in the New England colonies. She married Nathaniel Cunningham, Jr. (1725–1756) in 1753; this portrait may have been painted on the occasion of her betrothal. Her husband was the son of Captain Nathaniel Cunningham, whose wife—Sarah’s mother-in-law—is depicted in a portrait by John Smibert on the far side of the doorway of this gallery. Cunningham, Jr. died less than three years after their wedding, leaving Sarah a widow with two infant daughters. In 1757 she married Captain Gilbert McAdam, a Scotsman from Ayrshire who fought in the French and Indian War (1754–63). The McAdams later moved to Scotland. Boston artist John Greenwood made changes in developing the composition: the shadow of a column base is visible in the left corner of the landscape vista, and Sarah Kilby’s left hand probably at first rested in her lap—an outline of a hand can be seen below the folds of the skirt.Published ReferencesBolton, C., ed., American Portraits 1620-1825 in Massachusetts, Boston, 1929, I, p. 100, no. 530.

Burroughs, Alan., Limners and Likenesses, Cambridge, 1936, p. 54 (as Mrs. Cunningham).

Burroughs, Alan., John Greenwood in America, 1745-1752, Andover, 1943, pp. 27-29, 34, 59, 66-67, 72, fig. 18.

Larkin, O., Art in America, New York, 1949, p. 53 (as Mrs. Cunningham).

Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 130, November 1951, repr.

Washington, W. Selden, Jr., "Our Colonial Heritage," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 2, no. 2, Autumn 1959, p. 5, repr.

Mooz, R., "The Art of Robert Feke," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1970, p. 192.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, pp. 56-57, pl. 3.

Craven, Wayne, American Art, History and Culture, Madison, WI, 1994, p. 96, fig. 7.4.

Exhibition HistoryBoston, Museum of Fine Arts, One Hundred Colonial Portraits, 1930, no. 23, repr.

Andover (MA), Addison Gallery of American Art, John Greenwood in America, 1942.