Benjamin West

The portrait of Benjamin West from 1817, now in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, depicts the American-born painter who served as President of the Royal Academy from 1792 until his death in 1820 — one of the most influential figures in British art during the Neoclassical period. Charles Robert Leslie, himself American-born, had a natural personal connection to West, who served as a mentor and patron to several generations of American artists who came to London to study. West had come to London in 1763 and never returned to America, becoming one of the most celebrated history painters in Britain and George III's favorite painter. Leslie's portrait of the elderly West — painted when the president was in his late seventies — is a work of genuine affection as well as professional respect, creating a record of the figure who had done most to establish history painting as a serious category of British art. The Boston museum's holding connects this British work to its American origins: both West and Leslie were Philadelphia-born painters who found their mature careers in London, and their portraits represent the transatlantic dimension of British Neoclassical art.

The portrait demonstrates Leslie's accomplished portraiture alongside his better-known literary genre work, with warm handling and dignified characterization.