Joseph Blackburn
Probably born and died in England.
Active 1752–77.

Hannah Babcock (Mrs. John Bours), 1759¹
Oil on canvas
50 3/16 x 40 1/8 in. (127.5 x 102 cm)
Bequest of George Nixon Black, 1929.23

Provenance
Dr. Joshua Babcock (1707–1783) and Hannah Stanton Babcock (1714–1778); John (1734–1815) and Hannah Babcock Bours (1743–1796), the sitter; Luke Bours (1784–1842), their son, who moved to Charleston, South Carolina; Eunice Neufville Bours, who married a Mr. Gray; Miss Jenny Gray, Charleston, who sold them in Boston, about 1907/08. George Nixon Black (d. 1928), Boston, by 1908.²

References
Downes 1915.

Bayley 1917a, n.p.

Park 1923a, 17–18.

"Accessions," Worcester Bulletin, 20, no. 1 (April 1929), 27.

Bayley 1929, 73.

"Gifts," Worcester Annual Report 1929, [23].

Worcester 1929, n.p.

Bolton and Binsse 1930a, 88.

Addison Gallery 1932, n.p.

"Loans from the Museum Collections," Worcester Annual Report 1933, [37].

Worcester 1933, 94.

Morgan and Foote 1937, 68.

American Portraits 1939, I, 20.

Dresser 1961, [36], 37–38.

Prown 1966, I, 35 n 7.

Lee 1968, I, 107.

Brockton Art Center 1969, fig. 17, n.p.

Reutlinger 1975, 19–20, 21.

Teitz 1979, 24–25.

Miles 1995, 40.

Carol Troyen, "Mrs. Samuel Quincy (Hannah Hill)," in Rebora 1995, 188.

Exhibitions
Loan Exhibit of Early American Portraits, Boston Art Club, November 4–25, 1911, cat. no. 6.

Early American Portraits, Copley Gallery, Boston, February 1915.

Exhibition of American Eighteenth-Century Art Owned in and near Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, March 10–31, 1929, cat. no. 326.

American Paintings in New England Museums, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, May 28–June 22, 1932, cat. no. 2.

Three Centuries of New England Art from New England Museums, New Brockton Art Center, Fuller Memorial, Brockton, Massachusetts, January 15–March 2, 1969, fig. 17, n.p.

The Colonial Epoch in America, Worcester Art Museum, April 18, 1975–January 4, 1976, cat. pp. 19–20, 21.

American Art from the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, April 27–June 24, 1979, cat. pp. 24–25.

Notes
1. This painting also has been published as Hannah Babcock (Dresser 1961, [36]); Hannah Babcock Bours (Addison Gallery 1932, n.p.); Hannah Bours ("Loans from the Museum Collections," Worcester Annual Report 1933, [37]); Mrs. Bours (Worcester 1933, 94); Mrs. John Bours (Bayley 1917a, n.p.); Mrs. John Bours (Hannah Babcock) (Bayley 1929, 73); Miss Hannah Babcock (Park 1923a, 17); Portrait of Hannah Babock Bours (Mrs. John) ("Gifts," Worcester Annual Report 1929, [23]); and Portrait of Mrs. John Bours (Hannah Babcock Bours) ("Accessions," Worcester Bulletin, 20, no. 1 (April 1929), 27).

2. Letters from Mary S. Bours to Louisa Dresser, April 10 and April 30, 1962, provide the family tradition of the portrait’s descent. Black’s ownership of the painting in 1908 is established by Frank W. Bayley to the Reverend Daniel Merriman, March 23, 1908. John A. Peters, executor of the estate of George Nixon Black, to Benjamin A. Stone, Worcester Art Museum Secretary, February 23, 1929, explains that the painting was bequeathed to the Museum. All correspondence in object file, Worcester Art Museum.