Colonel William Allen, between 1756 and 1758

  • John Hesselius, American, 1728-1778

Oil on canvas

  • Unframed: 36 × 28 1/2 inches (91.4 × 72.4 cm)
  • 42 1/2 × 35 1/4 × 2 3/4 inches (108 × 89.5 × 7 cm)

Gift of Dexter M. Ferry, Jr.

27.606

On View

  • American, Level 2, West

Department

American Art before 1950

ca. 1758-1790 or 1793, the sitter, William Allen

1790 or 1793-1831, his son, Colonel William Allen

1831-1833, his sister, Anne Armistead Allen

1833-1857, her daughter, Martha Armistead Edloe

1857-1875, her son, William Griffin Orgain, who took the name of Allen

his son, William Allen

his widow, Mrs. William Allen. 1927, dealer, Robert C. Vose (Boston, Massachusetts, USA)

1927-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

Burroughs, Clyde H. “Portraits by Wollaston and Harding.” Bulletin of the DIA 9, 2 (November 1927): p. 20. Burroughs, Clyde H. “Early American Portraits at the Detroit Institute of Arts.” Art in America 17 (October 1929): p. 259. Heil, Walter and Clyde H. Burroughs. Catalogue of Paintings in the Permanent Collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts of the City of Detroit. Detroit, 1930, no. 409. Burroughs, Alan. Limners and Likenesses: Three Centuries of American Painting. Cambridge, MA, 1936, p. 48 (fig. 44). Survey of Colonial and Provincial Paintings. Exh. cat., University Gallery, University of Minnesota. 1939, p. 17, no. 45 (ill.). [attributed to Wollaston] 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. 124-125, no. 52.

John Hesselius, Colonel William Allen, between 1756 and 1758, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Dexter M. Ferry, Jr., 27.606.