Mr. and Mrs. John Custance
Framed: 74 1/8 × 98 × 3 7/8 inches (188.28 × 248.92 × 9.84 cm)
- 211
[“Opening Exhibition of Eighteenth-Century Paintings”], Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Mass., October 7–November 2, 1933, no. 6.
A Survey of American Painting, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Md., January 10–February 28, 1934, no. 6 (as Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
American Eighteenth Century Art, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo., March 4–April 1, 1934, no cat.
Benjamin West, 1738–1820, Pennsylvania Museum of Fine Art, Philadelphia, Pa., March 5–April 10, 1938, no. 32 (as Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
The Century of Mozart, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo., January 15–March 4, 1956, no. 105.
Kaleidoscope of American Painting: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo., December 2, 1977–January 22, 1978, no. 7.
Benjamin West: American Painter at the English Court, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Md., June 4–August 20, 1989, no. 26.
West was the primary teacher for three generations of American painters, the court painter for King George III and president of the Royal Academy. His success in London became a symbol of what an artist born in America could achieve.
to Hambleton Thomas Custance (son of the sitters), by descent;
to Sir Hambleton Francis Custance (grandson of the sitters), by descent;
to Colonel Frederic Custance (great-grandson of the sitters), by descent;
to Lady Olive Eleanor Custance Douglas (great-great-granddaughter of the sitters), Weston House, Norfolk, Eng., by descent;
to (Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 20 May 1927, lot 110 [as Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance]);
to Madame Herz, 1927;
(Jacques Seligmann & Co., New York, by 1933);
to NAMA, 1934.
“Exhibition,” Budget or Weekly Miscellany, [1779], clipping, NAMA curatorial files (as A Gentleman and Lady Painted in Commemoration of Their Marriage).
The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, exh. cat. (London: T. Cadell, 1779), 25 (as A Gentleman and Lady, Painted in Commemoration of Their Marriage).
Possibly “A Correct Catalogue of the Works of Mr. West,” Public Characters of 1805 (London, 1805), 563 (as The Family Picture of Sir Edmund Baker, Nephew, and Niece, Half Lengths).
Possibly “A Correct List of the Works of Mr. West,” Universal Magazine (London) 3 (June 1805), 529 (Ditto of Sir Edmund Baker, Nephew and Niece).
Possibly “A Correct Catalogue of the Works of Benjamin West, Esq.,” La Belle Assemblée; or, Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine (London) 4 (1808), supplement, 15 (as The Family Picture of Sir Edmund Bacon’s Nephew and Niece, Half Lengths).
Possibly John Galt, “A Catalogue of the Works of Mr. West,” in The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy of London (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1820), pt. 2:222 (as Do. of Sir Edmund Baker, Nephew and Niece, Half-Length).
Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from Its Foundation in 1769 to 1904 (London: Henry Graves and Co., 1906), 7:214 (as A Gentleman and Lady, Painted in Commemoration of Their Marriage).
John Beresford, ed., Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend Woodforde (London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1926), 2: frontispiece (as Squire Custance and His Wife with Hymen).
Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 20
May 1927, lot 110 (as Portraits of Mr.
and Mrs. John
Custance).
Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, Portraits in Norfolk Houses, ed. Edmund Farrer (Norwich, Eng.: Jarrold and Sons, 1927), 2:389, opp. 392.
Catalogue of the Opening Exhibition, exh. cat. (Springfield, Mass.: Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 20.
“American Art Exhibit Opens Here Next Week,” Evening Sun (Baltimore), January 6, 1934, 14.
M. K. P., “Colonial Art and Textiles Draw Crowds to Two Centers,” Kansas City Times, March 5, 1934, 13.
“Benjamin West’s Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance,” Kansas City Star, March 18, 1934, Inset sec., 3.
“Masterpiece of the Week,” Kansas City Journal-Post, July 8, 1934, 2B.
“Art,” Kansas City Star, July 8, 1934, 16A.
A Survey of American
Painting, exh. cat. (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1934), 10 (as Portrait of
Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
Richard Graham, “Benjamin West: American Romantic; A First One-Man Show in Philadelphia on His Bicentenary,” Art News 36 (March 1938), 13 (as Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
Ella S. Siple, “Art in America—Three Exhibitions of Eighteenth-Century Art,” Burlington Magazine 72 (May 1938), 238.
Kansas City Journal, December 4, 1938, Gravure Picture sec., [2].
Benjamin West, 1738–1820, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Museum of Art, 1938), 37, pl. 32 (as Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
“Kansas City’s Nelson Gallery Celebrates Its Fifth Anniversary,” Art Digest 13 (December 15, 1939), 7 (as Mr. and Mrs. Custance).
The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 149, 151, 167 (as Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd. ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 197.
“The Century of Mozart,” Bulletin (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 1 (1956), 32.
Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 141, 258.
Frederick Cummings and Allen Staley, Romantic Art in Britain: Paintings and Drawings, 1760–1860, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968), 97.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds. Arts of the Occident. Vol. 1. Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts. 5th ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 170, 255.
John Dillenberger, Benjamin West: The Context of His Life’s Work with Particular Attention to Paintings with Religious Subject Matter (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1977), app. 1:158 (as Do. of Sir Edmund Bacon’s Nephew and Niece, Half Lengths), 192 (as A Gentleman and Lady, Painted in Commemoration of Their Marriage).
Kaleidoscope of American Painting: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1977), 16.
Ross E. Taggart, “American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,” Antiques 122 (November 1982), 1027, 1031 (as Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 30–31, 490, 499–500, 502.
“Custance Family Portraits,” Parson Woodforde Society Quarterly Journal 21 (Spring 1988), 19–20.
Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1988), 114–15, 119 (as Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
Allen Staley, “Portraits of Benjamin West,” Antiques 135 (June 1989), 1459, 1462–63.
Dan Hofstadter, “In One Great Swoop, Country Bumpkin to Royal Academy,” Smithsonian Magazine 20 (June 1989), 130, 134.
William L. Pressly, “Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art: Benjamin West,” Burlington Magazine 131 (August 1989), 590.
Benjamin West: American Painter at the English Court, exh. cat. (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1989), 48–49, 51, 114.
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 19–20.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 231 (as Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Custance).
Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art 1933–1993 (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
1993), 53.
Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts, A History of European Picture Frames (London: Merrell Holberton Publishers, 1996), 65, 65n47.
Calendar of Events (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), June 2002, 6.
Calendar of Events (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), Winter 2003, 10.
Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings
to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1:539–541,
2: 247–249.
