  About the Artwork
  
  
  One of the most celebrated artists of the eighteenth century, the Swiss-born Angelica Kauffman was also one of its most international, beginning her professional ascent in Venice, rising to fame in London, then spending the later part of her career in Rome, where her studio was an unmissable social destination. She was a founding member of England’s Royal Academy, one of only two women to hold this distinction. This painting, along with Mrs. Mary May and Her Daughters, Maria Emilia, Louisa, and Sophia Margaret, also owned by the Detroit Institute of Arts, represents the family of a wealthy wine merchant who had relocated from Portugal to England in 1775. The two pictures are Kauffman’s only known pendant, or paired, portraits. In line with gender roles at the time, the artist varied the settings for the sitters: the males of the May family occupy an architectural interior furnished with a globe, hinting at their worldly pursuits and the role of the next generation in the family’s international trade; the women are shown at ease in a natural setting.
  
  
  Title
  Mr. Joseph May and his sons, Thomas Charles, Joseph and John
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1780
  
  Artist
  Angelica Kauffman
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1741 - 1807
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Swiss
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 53 3/4 × 66 1/8 × 1 1/8 inches (136.5 × 168 × 2.9 cm)
  Framed: 57 1/8 × 69 1/2 × 2 inches (145.1 × 176.5 × 5.1 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Painting
  
  
  Credit
  Museum Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  2022.266.2
  
  
  Copyright
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