
Art Institute of ChicagoPublic domain
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise
Benjamin West · 1791, retouched 1803
Provenance
Ownership history
- Benjamin West (d. 1820); by descent to his sons, Raphael Lamar West and Benjamin West Jr.; sold Robins, London, May 22–25, 1829, no. 88, to Hayes for 43 gns [von Erffa and Staley 1986, p. 286, no. 233]. Possibly Henry Graves and Son, London [information on mount of a photograph at the Frick Art Reference Library]. Samuel Putnam Avery, New York; sold by Avery to Thomas B. Clarke, New York, by 1891; sold American Art Galleries, New York, February 14–18, 1899, no. 355, to Harry W. Watrous for $200 [von Erffa and Staley 1986, p. 286, no. 233]; Harry W. Watrous to at least 1922 [lent by him to the Brooklyn Museum exhibition 1922]; sold by Watrous to M. A. Newhouse and Son, St. Louis [letter of 15 April, 1994 from Joan Pope of Newhourse Galleries in curatorial file]; sold by Newhouse to George F. Harding, Jr. (d. 1939), Chicago, 1926; bequeathed to the George F. Harding Museum, Chicago; transferred to the Art Institute, 1982.
Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.
Exhibitions
Exhibition history
- London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1805, no. 86.
- London, West’s Gallery, 1822, no. 73.
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The Thomas B. Clarke Collection of American Pictures, 1891, no. 192.
- Chicago, World’s Columbian Exposition, Exhibit of Private Collections, 1893, no. 2861b.
- New York, Brooklyn Museum, Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Benjamin West and of Engravings Representing His Work, 1922, no. 23.
Literature
Published references
- “Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy, Etc.,” in Public Characters of 1805 (London, 1805), p. 566.
- “Biographical Sketch of Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy, Etc., Etc.” Universal Magazine 3 (June, 1805), p. 530.
- Joel Barlow, The Columbiad: A Poem (Philadelphia, 1807), p. 435 n. 45 (list of West’s works).
- “A Correct Catalogue of the Works of Benjamin West, Esq.,” La Belle Assemblée, or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine 4 (1808), suppl., p. 17.
- John Galt, The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy of London, vol. 2 (London, 1820), p. 229.
- Jerry D. Meyer, “Benjamin West’s Chapel of Revealed Religion: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Religious Art,” Art Bulletin 57 (1975), p. 264.
- John Dillenberger, Benjamin West: The Context of His Life’s Work with Particular Attention to Paintings with Religious Subject Matter (San Antonio, Texas, 1977), pp. 62, 174, 196, 201, 206, 214, fig. 36.
- Nancy L. Pressly, Revealed Religion: Benjamin West’s Commissions for Windsor Castle and Fonthill Abbey, exh. cat. (San Antonio Museum of Art, 1983), under no. 7.
- Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West (New Haven and London, 1986), pp. 286–87, no. 233, ill., p. 581.
- Cynthia J. Mills in Ellen Miles, American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art: Systematic Catalogue (Washington, D.C., 1995), pp. 335–36, fig. 1.
- Malcolm Warner in Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1996), pp. 301–05, ill.
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