Exhibition Guide
Jonathan Granville
Audio
Looking with fascination
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Art Object Info
Philip Tilyard of Baltimore was a painter of signs and ornaments who aspired to making fine art. Having learned the conventions of traditional portraiture, Tilyard captured a straightforward, dignified likeness of Jonathan Granville (d. 1839), who was an envoy sent to Maryland by the president of Haiti. Granville’s mission was to promote the emigration of free blacks from America to that island nation. Tilyard painted Granville at about the time the envoy addressed the Baltimore Emigration Society in the City Council Chambers. Subsequently, according to the Baltimore American, a ship named the Strong sailed from the port of Baltimore for Haiti, carrying 21 emigrants. In 1827, Baltimore collector Robert Gilmor, Jr., wrote in his diary: “Col. Trumbull, now on his way to Washington to make some alteration in his great historical pictures in the Capitol… I carried him also to Tilyard’s painting room to see the portraits he has made, which were very much to his satisfaction. Tilyard was a common sign painter, but having a real taste for the art, he has taught himself portrait painting and has made some excellent pictures.”
Art Object Info
Philip Tilyard of Baltimore was a painter of signs and ornaments who aspired to making fine art. Having learned the conventions of traditional portraiture, Tilyard captured a straightforward, dignified likeness of Jonathan Granville (d. 1839), who was an envoy sent to Maryland by the president of Haiti. Granville’s mission was to promote the emigration of free blacks from America to that island nation. Tilyard painted Granville at about the time the envoy addressed the Baltimore Emigration Society in the City Council Chambers. Subsequently, according to the Baltimore American, a ship named the Strong sailed from the port of Baltimore for Haiti, carrying 21 emigrants. In 1827, Baltimore collector Robert Gilmor, Jr., wrote in his diary: “Col. Trumbull, now on his way to Washington to make some alteration in his great historical pictures in the Capitol… I carried him also to Tilyard’s painting room to see the portraits he has made, which were very much to his satisfaction. Tilyard was a common sign painter, but having a real taste for the art, he has taught himself portrait painting and has made some excellent pictures.”