Henry Benbridge (1743 – 1812)

• Was an early American portrait painter.
• He was born in Philadelphia, the only child of James and Mary (Clark) Benbridge.
• When he was fourteen years old he may have watched John Wollaston paint Gordon's portrait.
• When he was 21, Benbridge was sent to Italy, where he studied with Pompeo Batoni and Anton Raphael Mengs.
• In 1769, on commission from James Boswell, biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson, he made a portrait of Pasquale Paoli in Corsica which he took to London.
• It was exhibited (1769) at the Free Society of Artists, and from it three mezzotints were scraped and published with the artist's name signed "Bembridge."
• Like other young Americans he was encouraged by Benjamin West.
• In Philadelphia Benbridge married Hetty Sage.
• He was admitted on January 18, 1771, to membership in the American Philosophical Society, of which Benjamin Franklin was a founder.
• He painted the large portrait of the Gordon family, with six figures, one of his masterpieces.
• Suffering, however, from asthma, he sought a more congenial climate and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he succeeded Jeremiah Theus as the popular portrait painter of South Carolina.
• Around 1800 Benbridge settled in Norfolk, Virginia.
• At Norfolk he gave to Thomas Sully his first lessons in oil painting.
• He had previously instructed Thomas Coram of Charleston.
• Sully describes his master as "a portly man of good address–gentlemanly in his deportment." 

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