Joseph Badger (c. 1707–1765) was a portrait artist in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
, in the 18th century. He was born in
Charlestown, Massachusetts, to tailor Stephen Badger and Mercy Kettell. He "began his career as a house-painter and glazier, and ... throughout his life continued this work, besides painting signs, hatchments and other heraldic devices, in order to eke out a livelihood when orders for portraits slackened."
[Lawrence Park]
Joseph Badger (1708-1765)
and a descriptive list of some of his works. 1918 In 1731 he married Katharine Felch; they moved to Boston around 1733. He was a member of the
Brattle Street Church.
He died in Boston on May 11, 1765, when "on Saturday last one Mr. Badger, of this Town, Painter, was taken with an Apoplectic Fit as he was walking in his Garden, and expired in a few Minutes after." Works by Badger are in the collections of the Worcester Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Historic New England's Phillips House, Salem, Mass. While respected in his own time, subsequent scholars and connoisseurs largely overlooked Badger's significance until
Lawrence Park wrote a book about him in 1918.
Portrait subjects
*James Bowdoin (1676–1747), father of Massachusetts governor
James Bowdoin
*Elizabeth Campbell, wife of William Foye
*William Cooper (1716–1743), pastor of the Brattle St. Church, Boston
*Andrew Croswell (1709–1785), pastor of
King's Chapel
King's Chapel is an American independent Christian unitarian congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association that is "unitarian Christian in theology, Anglican in worship, and congregational in governance." It is housed ...
, Boston
*Thomas Cushing (1696–1746), speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and father of
Thomas Cushing
Thomas Cushing III (March 24, 1725 – February 28, 1788) was an American lawyer, merchant, and statesman from Boston, Massachusetts. Active in Boston politics, he represented the city in the provincial assembly from 1761 to its dissolution ...
*
Thomas Dawes
*
Jonathan Edwards
*Josiah Flagg & Jane Flagg Greene, descendants of Jane Franklin, sister to Benjamin Franklin
*
William Foye
William Foye (November 1, 1716 – September 1, 1771) was a political figure in Nova Scotia. He was a member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1758 to 1759.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of William Foye, who served ...
*Esther Orne Gardner (ca. 1714-1755)
*Ellis Gray (1715–1753), pastor of
Old North Church
Old North Church (officially, Christ Church in the City of Boston), at 193 Salem Street, in the North End, Boston, is the location from which the famous "One if by land, two if by sea" signal is said to have been sent. This phrase is related ...
, Boston
*John Haskins (1729–1814), grandfather of
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
*John Homans (1753–1800), doctor
*Joseph Jackson (1707–1790)
*John Larrabee (1686–1792), commanding officer of
Castle William, Massachusetts
*Rev.
Dudley Leavitt (1720–1762)
*Mrs.
Dudley Leavitt (née Mary Pickering) (1733–1805), sister of
Timothy Pickering
Timothy Pickering (July 17, 1745January 29, 1829) was the third United States Secretary of State under Presidents George Washington and John Adams. He also represented Massachusetts in both houses of Congress as a member of the Federalist Party ...
*Elizabeth Marion (1721–1746), wife of William Story, and grandmother of
Joseph Story
Joseph Story (September 18, 1779 – September 10, 1845) was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from 1812 to 1845. He is most remembered for his opinions in ''Martin v. Hunter's Lessee'' and '' United States ...
*John Marston (1715–1786), proprietor of Boston's
Bunch-of-Grapes
The Bunch-of-Grapes was a tavern located on King Street (State Street (Boston), State Street) in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 17th and 18th centuries. Typical of taverns of the time, it served multiple functions in the life of the town. Often t ...
tavern during the
Revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
*Lois Orne, wife of
William Paine (physician)
William Paine (June 5, 1750 – April 19, 1833) was a physician and political figure in New Brunswick. He represented Charlotte County in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick from 1786 to 1787. Paine was unusual in that he was a United ...
*Rebecca Orne
*
Thomas Prince
*William Scott, shoemaker, Boston
*Elizabeth Storer, wife of Boston merchant-shipowner Isaac Smith (1719–1787)
*William Tyler (1688–1758), business partner of
Thomas Hancock
*Cornelius Waldo (1684–1753)
*
George Whitefield[Portrait of Whitefield, ca. 1750, attributed to Joseph Badger. Harvard University Portrait Collection.]
Image gallery
Image:Brooklyn Museum - John Haskins - Joseph Badger - overall.jpg, ''John Haskins'', 1759 ( Brooklyn Museum)
Image:Brooklyn Museum - Mrs. John Haskins (née Hannah Upham) - Joseph Badger - overall.jpg, ''Mrs. John Haskins (née Hannah Upham)'', 1759 ( Brooklyn Museum)
Image:ElizabethStorer ca1746 byJosephBadger MFABoston.png, Portrait of Elizabeth Storer, ca. 1746 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Image:1750 CorneliusWaldo byJosephBadger WorcesterArtMuseum.png, Portrait of Cornelius Waldo, 1750 (Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts)
Image:ElizabethCampbell ca1750 byJosephBadger MFABoston.png, Portrait of Elizabeth Campbell, ca. 1750 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Image:GeorgeWhitefield ca1750s attrib JosephBadger Harvard.png, Portrait of George Whitefield, ca. 1750s, attributed to Badger (Harvard University)
Image:JonathanEdwards byJosephBadger Yale detail.png, Detail of portrait of Jonathan Edwards (Yale University)
Image:JohnLarrabee ca1750 byJosephBadger.png, Portrait of John Larrabee, ca. 1750 (Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts)
Image:WilliamFoyeJr ca1750 byJosephBadger MFABoston.jpeg, Portrait of William Foye, Jr., ca. 1750 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Image:ThomasDawes ca1764 byJosephBadger Harvard.png, Portrait of Thomas Dawes, ca. 1764
References
Further reading
*Lawrence Park
Joseph Badger (1708-1765) and a descriptive list of some of his works. 1918.
*Portrait of Jeremiah Belknap by Joseph Badger. Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 6, No. 7/8 (Sep. - Oct., 1919), pp. 123–125.
*The Orne Portraits by Joseph Badger. Worcester Art Museum Bulletin v. 1, no. 2, Feb. 1972.
External links
Joseph Badger at American Art Gallery*WorldCat
Badger, Joseph 1708-1765Worcester Art Museum
Worcester, Massachusetts. Joseph Badger (1707/8–1765).
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Inventory of works by Badger.
Youngstown, Ohio. Joseph Badger.
Cleveland Museum of Art
Portrait of Jeremiah Belknap, ca. 1758.
*
John Singleton Copley in America
'' a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Joseph Badger (see index)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Badger, Joseph
1707 births
1765 deaths
American portrait painters
Artists from Boston
18th-century American painters
18th-century American male artists
American male painters
18th century in Boston