Portraits from American Matthew Pratt 1734-1805

.Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Portrait of Abigail Willing (1743–1830)

Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Elizabeth Gay (Mrs. Thomas Bolling) with twins Sarah & Ann 1773
Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Elizabeth Shewell (1741-1814) (Mrs Benjamin West) c 1765
Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Benjamin West (American artist, 1738-1820)

At age 15, Matthew Pratt (1734-1805) was apprenticed to his artist uncle, James Claypoole, from whom he learned "all the different branches of the painting business, particularly portrait-painting." About 1764 he went to England to join expatriate artist Benjamin West. Upon returning to the new republic, Charles Willson Peale noted that Pratt had a full-length of John Dickinson plus "a considerable number of portraits on hand." Pratt worked in New York City in 1771-72, where his commissions included a full-length portrait of Governor Cadwalader Colden, & he met John Singleton Copley. Pratt next traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia, where he advertised in The Virginia Gazette (March 4, 1773) that he was "Lately from England and Ireland But last from New York." As a partner in the Philadelphia firm of Pratt, Rutter & Co., which offered "Portrait and ornamental painting," he returned to the practical decorative & sign painting.

Matthew Pratt (American Colonial Era Painter, 1734-1805) Self Portrait.