A Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel (1743-1830)

Book excerpt: Drawing on original manuscript sources, Maxey has produced a persuasive study of a late-18th-century portrait and its subject. He has focused attention on an enigmatic painting, and the person portrayed in it -- a woman of talent and verve, whose life has remained undeservedly obscure. Elizabeth Willing Powel presided over a salon; spoke her mind freely; and maintained, for a period of 40 years, an extensive, illuminating correspondence. She was the trusted confidante of the country’s first president, whom she did not hesitate to instruct on where duty summoned him. At a critical moment, the Philadelphia painter, Matthew Pratt, was commissioned to capture on canvas the grief she experienced. Color portrait.