Sally Sayward Barrell (1738-1805)

Details

Descriptive Terms

portraits
paintings (visual works)
canvas
oil paint (paint)
Picture
Portrait
Portrait

Label

In 1761, Jonathan Sayward commissioned Joseph Blackburn, then residing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to paint a portrait of his daughter Sally. The English-trained Blackburn had worked in Bermuda and Boston before moving to Portsmouth in 1758 where he remained for five years before returning to England. Like most portrait artists in the colonies, Blackburn moved often. Exhausting the pool of available subjects in one town, artists moved on in search of new clients. Blackburn's invoice to Sayward survives and indicates that his fee for the portrait was ten guineas, approximately the cost of a very expensive piece of case furniture.
Sally was the Saywards' only child. At the time of her portrait, the twenty-three-year-old and her two-year-old daughter were living with her parents while her husband, merchant Nathaniel Barrell, was in the midst of a three-year business trip to England. The painting shows a typically idealized image of eighteenth-century womanhood, with Mrs. Barrell loosely holding a basket of roses over one arm and a rose bud in the other hand.
A few years after this portrait was painted, Sally's husband Nathaniel Barrell broke with his father-in-law over religious differences and refused to allow his children to see their grandfather. The rift lasted for seventeen years, during which time this portrait, hanging in the Sayward's parlor, must have served as a poignant reminder of family troubles.

"Artful Stories": In 1761 Sally Sayward Barrell was living in her parents’ home in what is now York, Maine, while her husband was on a three-year business trip to England. The portrait shows her as a woman of leisure and insofar as that was true, her leisure may have been supported by enslaved servants who worked around the house. We don't know who else was living with the Saywards at the time, but we do know that fifteen years later Sally's father owned at least two men of African descent, Prince and Cato. We know little about them, although our research continues.

Associated Person

Barrell, Sarah "Sally" Sayward, 1738-1805

Maker

Blackburn, Joseph, ca. 1730-ca. 1778 (Artist)

Location of Origin

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States

Dimensions

50 1/2 x 40 1/2 (HxW) (inches)

Credit Line

Gift of the heirs of Elizabeth Cheever Wheeler

Accession Number

1978.115

Places

New Hampshire (United States)
Maine (United States)
Portsmouth (Rockingham county, New Hampshire)