"My Lady and Child": Benjamin West, Raphael, and the Construction of Artistic Identity in the Eighteenth Century

Early in his career, Benjamin West was designated Raphael’s American successor in both Roman and London art circles. West’s receipt of this title presumably emanated from the recognition of formal similarities between his work and that of Raphael, yet modern scholarship has not addressed the specific attributes of his work that would constitute such a comparison. Interestingly, West’s family portrait, Mrs. Benjamin West and her son, Raphael (1770), which has also received little scholarly consideration, encourages further exploration into this potential correlation between West and the Renaissance master.
This paper will examine the legitimacy of Benjamin West’s claim to his artistic identity as the ‘American Raphael’ through an analysis of his Mrs. Benjamin West and her son, Raphael, in which West appropriated the Madonna della Sedia (1514), one of the most celebrated of Raphael’s works during the eighteenth-century. Through a formal and iconographical comparison, supplemented by textual sources, including personal correspondences, this paper will propose that West’s construction of Mrs. Benjamin West and her son, Raphael signifies a concerted effort to reaffirm the validity of his artistic identity as the ‘American Raphael.’

Location: LDSOA Rm 150