AFA Winter 2017

2017 Antiques & Fine Art 73 Fig. 5 : Charles Wilson Peale (1741–1827), Portrait of Maskel Ewing and Portrait of Jane Hunter Ewing, 1788. Oil on canvas, each 41¾ x 32⅝ inches. Bequest of Sewell C. Biggs & museum purchase (2004.438 & 2016.2); Tall clock, after 1774, by James Kinkead (working in Philadelphia and Chester County 1760–1774 and in Christiana Bridge starting in 1774, perhaps died in 1797), Christiana Bridge, Del. Mahogany, brass. Museum purchase (2008.31); Two of five side chairs, 1795, by John Janvier (1749-1801), Cantwell’s Bridge (Odessa), Del. Mahogany. Gift of Barbara L. Simons (2011.11.1-.5). Photo by Andrew Dalton. purchased at auction Charles Willson Peale’s portrait of Maskell Ewing (1788), seen on the left, as a centerpiece to his grouping of paintings by Peale family members. In 2016, the museum was able to purchase the companion of this wedding set, the portrait of Jane Hunter Ewing; both retain their original frames. The two were reunited at the museum on Valentine’s Day. Shortly after the publication of the Biggs Museum’s seminal study of Delaware tall-case clocks, its staff located an example, shown in the center of illustration five, by James Kinkead. Not as well known as other early-Delaware clockmakers already within the museum’s collection, this example has perhaps the most sophisticated engraved decoration of any Delaware clock known. Kinkead inscribed the silvered clock face with his name and “Christiana Bridge,” the place where his family had lived and operated a clock-making business perhaps since before 1750. 1 The Biggs legacy was further enlarged with the gift of five side chairs, a