Portrait of Phillis Wheatley
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| Portrait of Phillis Wheatley | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Scipio Moorhead? |
| Year | 1773 |
Portrait of Phillis Wheatley is a lost painting used as the frontispiece for poet Phillis Wheatley's poetry collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, first published in 1773. Wheatley was the United States' first professional African American woman poet and the first African-American woman whose writings were published. She is also the third woman in the United States, regardless of ethnicity, to have her written work published. Copies of the engraving reside in the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution,[1] the Library of Congress,[2] the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the Yale University Library,[3] and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[4]
The painting depicts a young African American woman, Phillis Wheatley, sitting at a desk. She has a thoughtful look on her face, with her left hand poised against her chin, as if thinking about what she will write next with the quill in right hand. Her right hand sits atop a piece of paper. On the desk is also ink and a small book. She wears a bonnet and an apron over her dress.
The pose which Wheatley makes as she hovers her pen over the paper is reminiscent of the works of John Singleton Copley, who was commissioned to make portraits for many famous Bostonians of the time, and whose works were widely exhibited and shown throughout the city. However, Copley never portrayed a woman in the act of writing. In fact, this portrait appears to be the first portrayal of a woman writing in American history.[5][page needed]
