About the Artwork
Mrs. James Pitts
1757
Joseph Jonathan Blackburn
1700-1780
American
Unknown
Oil on canvas
Unframed: 50 1/8 × 40 inches (127.3 × 101.6 cm) Framed: 57 5/8 × 47 1/2 × 2 7/8 inches (146.4 × 120.7 × 7.3 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund
58.356
This work is in the public domain.
Markings
Signed and dated, lower right: J. Blackburn Pinxit 1757
------
Provenance
until 1776, James Pitts (Boston, Massachusetts, USA)
his son, John Pitts (Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, USA)
his great-grand nephew, Thomas Pitts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
Mrs. Thomas Pitts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
her son, S. Lendall Pitts [1875-1938] (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
Mrs. S. Lendall Pitts [1880-1963] (Norfolk, Virginia, USA)
1958-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
Please note: This section is empty
The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
We welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.
Suggest FeedbackPublished References
Goodwin, D. Provincial Pictures by Brush and Pen. Chicago, 1886, pp. 10-11 (ill.).
Park, Lawrence. “Joseph Blackburn: A Colonial Portrait Painter with a Descriptive List of his Works.” American Antiquarian Society Proceedings 32 (October 1922): pp. 311-312.
Pilgrim Tercentenary Exhibition. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1921, no. 2. [as Elizabeth Bowdoin]
The Eleventh Exhibition: American Colonial and Early Federal Art. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1930, pp. 25-27, no. 71. [as Portrait of Elizabeth Bowdoin Pitts]
"Early America." Art Digest 4 (February 15, 1930): p. 8.
Bolton, Theodore and Harry Lorin Binsse. “An American Artist of Formula: Joseph Blackburn.” Antiquarian 15 (November 1930): p. 53.
Richardson, Edgar P. “American Portrait Painting.” Bulletin of the DIA 14, 1 (October 1934): p. 11.
Baker, C.H. Collins. “Notes on Joseph Blackburn and Nathaniel Dance.” Huntington Library Quarterly 9 (November 1945-August 1946): p. 41.
Painting in America: The Story of 450 Years. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1957, no. 28.
Sellers, Charles Coleman. “Mezzotint Prototypes of Colonial Portraiture: A Survey Based on the Research of Waldron Phoenix Belknap, Jr.” Art Quarterly 20, 4 (Winter 1957): p. 441 (pl. 27a).
Belknap, Waldron Phoenix, Jr. American Colonial Painting. Cambridge, MA, 1959, p. 301, no. 27a (pl. 28).
Eight Generations of the Pitts Family. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1959, pp. 26-27. [as Mrs. James Pitts]
Payne, Elizabeth H. “Pitts Family Portraits of the Eighteenth Century.” Antiques 77 (January 1960): p. 88.
Stevens, William B. Jr. “Joseph Blackburn and his Newport Sitters, 1754-1756.” Newport History 40 (Summer 1967): pp. 97-99.
Cummings, Frederick J. and Charles Elam, eds. The Detroit Institute of Arts Illustrated Handbook. Detroit, 1971, p. 131.
American Portraiture in the Grand Manner, 1720-1920. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1982, pp. 90-92.
Shaw, Nancy Rivard, et al. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volume 1: Works by Artists Born Before 1816. New York, 1991, pp. 40-43 (ill.).
American Beauty: Paintings from the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1770-1920. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 2002.
Kindly share your feedback or any additional information, as this record is still a work in progress and may need further refinement.
Suggest FeedbackCatalogue Raisoneé
Please note: This section is empty
Credit Line for Reproduction
Joseph Jonathan Blackburn, Mrs. James Pitts, 1757, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund, 58.356.
Feedback
We regularly update our object record as new research and findings emerge, and we welcome your feedback for correction or improvement.
Suggest Feedback