National Portrait Gallery
John Dickinson
- Artist
- Charles Willson Peale, 15 Apr 1741 - 22 Feb 1827
- Sitter
- John Dickinson, 8 Nov 1732 - 14 Feb 1808
- Date
- 1770
- Type
- Painting
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Sight: 124.5 x 99.7cm (49 x 39 1/4")
- Frame: 142.9 x 118.1cm (56 1/4 x 46 1/2")
- Topic
- Costume\Headgear\Hat
- Exterior\Landscape
- Nature & Environment\Plant\Tree
- Nature & Environment\Water\Lake
- Equipment\Walking stick
- John Dickinson: Male
- John Dickinson: Law and Crime\Lawyer
- John Dickinson: Literature\Writer
- John Dickinson: Politics and Government\Congressman\Continental congressman
- John Dickinson: Politics and Government\State Legislator\Pennsylvania
- John Dickinson: Politics and Government\Statesman\Signer of Constitution
- John Dickinson: Politics and Government\State Legislator\Delaware
- John Dickinson: Politics and Government\US Congressman\Delaware
- Portrait
- Credit Line
- Owner: Historical Society of Pennsylvania
This record is part of the Catalog of American Portraits, a research archive of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Permission to reproduce images (if available) must be obtained from the portrait owner. Please note that if an owner is listed above, this information may not be current.
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Object number
- 1926.1
- Exhibition Label
- Born Talbot County, Maryland
- The “Pennsylvania Farmer,” as John Dickinson signed himself in the press, was a Philadelphia lawyer trained in London’s Inns of Court and a politician with experience in the legislatures of both Delaware and Pennsylvania. Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (1767–68), warning that taxation by the British Parliament was a threat to America’s traditional liberties, “may be said to have sown the seeds of the Revolution,” Charles Willson Peale declared. “They were written with great animation and read with uncommon attention.”
- Peale’s original commission for a portrait of Dickinson, ordered by a Marylander living in London, came with a request for American scenery in the background. Hence we see here the falls of the Schuylkill River along with native plants and flowers.
- Nacido en Talbot County, Maryland
- John Dickinson firmaba sus escritos de prensa como "agricultor" (Pennsylvania Farmer), pero en realidad fue un abogado de Philadelphia formado en el sistema de las Inns of Court de Londres y además un político con trayectoria en las legislaturas de Delaware y Pennsylvania. En sus cartas recogidas bajo el título de Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (1767–68), denunció que los impuestos fijados por el Parlamento británico a las colonias de América atentaban contra las libertades civiles. Podría así decirse que esos textos "sembraron las semillas de la Revolución", como lo afirmó Charles Willson Peale. "Estaban redactados de manera muy amena y se leían con particular interés".
- El retrato de Dickinson fue encargado a Peale por alguien de Maryland que vivía en Londres, con la petición de que el fondo fuera una escena de América. De ahí que veamos las cascadas del río Schuylkill junto con plantas y flores nativas.
- Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827)
- Óleo sobre lienzo, 1770
- Préstamo de The Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection; donación de A. Sydney Logan
- L/NPG.8.2006
- Data Source
- Catalog of American Portraits
