Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill)
Benjamin West1776
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Hostilities between North American colonists and Britain were boiling over in the 1770s when Benjamin West painted this double portrait. The British wanted to ensure the loyalty of the Mohawk people, the easternmost tribe of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), in case of war.
British Colonel Guy Johnson commissioned the painting while in London with Mohawk Chief Karonghyontye in 1775. It commemorates Johnson’s promotion to British superintendent of the “Six Nations” (as the British called the Iroquois Confederacy). Karonghyontye was a prominent leader with a key role in diplomatic conversations. But West paints him gazing at Johnson from the shadows, a sign of their unequal alliance.
- Title: Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill)
- Creator: Benjamin West
- Date Created: 1776
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 202 x 138 cm (79 1/2 x 54 5/16 in.) framed: 222.6 x 160 x 9.5 cm (87 5/8 x 63 x 3 3/4 in.)
- Provenance: Ethel Dixon-Brown [d. c. 1950], Henfield, Sussex;[1] (Sotheby's, London, 7 December 1927, no. 54, as a portrait of Sir Joseph Banks); bought by (Frank T. Sabin, London);[2] sold 27 November 1936 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[3] sold 21 January 1937 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1940 to NGA. [1] "Miss E. Dixon Brown, Martyn Lodge, Henfield, Sussex" is identified as the pre-sale owner in the records of the firm of Frank T. Sabin, compiled in 1927 (letter from Sidney Sabin dated 6 June 1991, in NGA curatorial files). This is confirmed by a label on the back of the painting. The owner's name has been misread in the past as E. Dina Brown. She was the daughter of the Reverend Dixon Dixon Brown [1826-1901] and his wife Georgina Elizabeth Dixon Brown [d. 1914]; see _Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry_, 17th ed., London, 1952: 278-279. Her death date was provided by Irene Dixon-Brown, her nephew's wife (letter of 15 July 1991, in NGA curatorial files). The earlier history of the painting is unknown. [2] Sotheby and Co., _Catalogue of Valuable Pictures by Old Masters of the Italian School; Portraits of the Dutch and English Schools; Pictures and Drawings of the English and French Schools_, London, 1927: 14; annotated copy, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. [3] The date of the sale is recorded in a stockbook owned by Sabin Galleries, Ltd., London (letter from Sidney F. Sabin dated 6 June 1991, in NGA curatorial files). According to M. Knoedler & Co., the painting was consigned to them in October 1936 {letter from Melissa De Medeiros, Knoedler Librarian, 28 May 1991, in NGA curatorial files).
- Medium: oil on canvas
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