AFA 18th Anniversary

a f ter his father, the Reverend John Hancock, died in 1744. When Thomas died, twenty-seven-year-old John inherited the international business empire and continued adding to the art collection. While researching portraits of Lydia, I discovered a listing in the Smithsonian Art Inventories Catalog for an “unlocated” portrait miniature in oil [ sic ] of “Hancock, Thomas, Mrs. (Lydia Henchman)–Child” painted by Charles Willson Peale (1741– 1827) in 1777. It was further identified as No. 354 in Charles Coleman Sellers’ Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale (hereafter P&M ). 3 However, the death date was incorrect—Lydia Henchman Hancock died April 25, 1776. Furthermore, Peale could not have painted her as a child since she was twenty-seven years old when he was born. Concurrently, the National Portrait Gallery’s Catalog of American Portraits ( CAP ) recorded a miniature, watercolor on ivory, of “Lydia Henchman Hancock, (1714–1777),” painted by Peale between 1777–1780, in the collection of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). No P&M number was given; the portrait was placed in the category: “Society and Social Change\Wife.” As it happens, there were two Lydia Henchman Hancocks. John Hancock’s daughter Lydia, named after his aunt Lydia, was born in November 1776 and died at age nine months in August 1777. The two Lydias were conf lated in the records: the 1777 death date was correct for the younger Lydia, while the 1714 birth year was correct for the elder Lydia. The Sellers P&M listing No. 354 was for an unlocated miniature of the infant Lydia, probably painted posthumously. Was the miniature at the RISD Museum an unknown portrait of Aunt Lydia—or was it perhaps the unlocated Peale portrait of baby Lydia? The Catalog of American Portraits also records two other Hancock family miniatures in the RISD Museum collection—a miniature of John Hancock by Peale (no P&M listing given) and a portrait of his son, John George Washington Hancock (1778– 1787), by an unknown artist. Simultaneously, the Art Inventories Catalog has records for “unlocated” portrait miniatures by Peale of John Hancock ( P&M No. 351) and “Mrs. John Hancock,” 18th Anniversary 148 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com When they were married, merchant Thomas Hancock (1703–1764) commissioned John Smibert to paint portraits of himself and his new bride, Lydia Henchman Hancock (1714–1776), and their par- ents. 2 One of the wealthiest men in America, having founded an extensive mercantile empire, the House of Hancock, Thomas Hancock built a mansion in Boston on Beacon Hill, and, unusual in colonial America, filled it with paintings: Dutch masters, land- scapes, and portraits of family, friends and business partners. In addition to the Smibert portraits, Thomas Hancock commissioned portraits of Lydia and himself by other artists, including miniatures by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) (Figs. 4, 5). Having no children, they adopted Thomas’s nephew John Fig. 4: John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), Lydia Henchman Hancock, 1766. Oil on copper, sight, 3⅞ x 2⅞ inches. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Gift of Charles H. Wood and museum purchase. Conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee.