BENJAMIN WEST P.R.A. (1738-1820) - Receive artist alerts » - More items from this artist »

Oil on canvas

40.00cm wide    54.50cm high    (15.75 inches wide  21.46 inches high)

Offered by Benjamin West's sons to the United States in 1826, and sold by them,
Robbins, London, 22-25 May 1829, lot 84 (Arethusa, 1 ft. 9 in. x 1 ft. 3 in.)
Bought by Ward for £63
Charles Butler, bought 1890’s
By descent in the family; to 2005

Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1986, catalogue 119, page 229
John Dillenberger, Benjamin West: The Context of His Life's Work, Published List of West's Paintings, San Antonio, 1977, Appendix I, page 181
Charles Robert Leslie, Autobiographical Recollections, Tom Taylor, London, 1860, Volume II, page 10
John Galt, A Catalogue of the Works of Mr West , in the Life, Studies and Works of Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy of London, 1820, Appendix II, listed page 232
Joel Barlow, Notes from The Colombiad - A Poem, Philadelphia, 1807, listed page 435 (Page 431, Barlow states that the list was given to him by West in 1802)
Bell's Court of Fashionable Magazine (La Belle Assemblee), IV, 1808, A Correct Catalogue of the works of Mr West, Esq., Supplement, listed page 18
Universal Magazine, A Correct List of the Works of Mr West, III, 1805, listed page 531
Public Characters of 1805, A Correct Catalogue of the Works of Mr West, London, 1805, listed page 567 (Arethusa Bathing, West, Gallery)

Royal Academy, 1802 under the title Arethusa, Vide Ovid's Metamorphoses, I, 5

Confirmed by Professor Allen Staley to be Arethusa, c. 1802, by Benjamin West

Benjamin West’s Arethusa has been lost to scholars since 1829, when it was sold at auction by his sons; it has reappeared in a private collection where it has remained since the end of the nineteenth century. The image was known solely through a copy by Thomas Sully, painted in 1813 and titled Musidora, which is now on loan to the Baltimore Museum of Art. Its first copyist, the Academician Robert Leslie, wrote to his sister in Philadelphia from London in 1812: I have just begun to copy a small picture of Mr West’s of Arethusa Bathing; it is a most beautiful thing; when it is finished I will endeavour to send it over … (this copy was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy the following year).

Benjamin West, the first American artist to gain international recognition, settled in London in 1763 where he became a founder member of the Royal Academy. He succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as its President in 1792.