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2020-51,A&B, Portrait
Portrait of James Canby
2020-51,A&B, Portrait

Portrait of James Canby

Dateca. 1820
Attributed to Francis Martin Drexel
OriginAmerica, Delaware, Wilmington (probably)
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 34 3/4 × 27in.
Credit LineGift of Beatrix T. Rumford
Object number2020-51,A&B
DescriptionPortrait of a seated young man. He is wearing a black suit jacket with white shirt and stock. His hair is dark, and he holds a book in his roper left hand which rests on a green cloth covered table. The background is a grey brown.
Label TextJames Canby (1781–1858) was an American businessman, banker and early railroad executive based in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the son of Samuel and Frances Lea Canby. James built himself as a businessman by expaneding his father's 1770s flour mill and opening several additional mills. He also served as president of the Bank of Wilmington and in the 1830s, he helped organize and obtain a state charter for the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad.

In 1803, James married Elizabeth Roberts (1781-1868) the daughter of Robert and Catherine Roberts. Together the couple had at least 7 children. They are buried together in the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetary in Delaware, a nonsecular cemetary which James helped to establish.

The artist, Francis Martin Drexel, likely completed these portraits of the Canby family shortly after immigrating from Switzerland where he had worked painting portraits, houses, and signs. Upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Drexel opened a stuidio and worked as an art instructor at Bazeley's Female Academy. He was or frequently exhibited at the Pennyslvania Academy of Fine Arts.
ProvenanceBy 1868, by inheritence to the sitter's son, Samuel Canby [1811-1875] (Wilmington, DE); by 1892, by inheritence to his daughter, Elizabeth Morris Canby [1848-1933] (Wilmington, DE); by 1933, by inheritence to her son, Dr. Samuel Canby Rumford [1878-1950] (Wilmington, DE); by 1962, by inheritence to his son, Lewis Rumford, Jr. [1905-1997] (Baltimore, MD); by 1998, by inheritence to his daughter, Beatrix Tyson Rumford [1939-2021] (Lexington, VA); 2020, by donation to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA)