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

Colonel Theodore Atkinson, 17601
Oil on canvas
49 1/2 x 40 in. (125.7 x 101.6 cm)
Museum purchase, 1918.13

Inscriptions
Signed and dated, center left, in black paint: "I. Blackburn Pinxit 1760."

On the document under the sitter’s hand, in black paint: "Expences of Government,"

On the document under the above, in black paint: "Enlistmts returnd/for 1760."

On the folded document at left, in black paint, partially obscured by the frame: ". . . Atkinson Esqr/[Ports] mouth"

Provenance
Theodore Atkinson; to his first cousin once removed George King Atkinson (d. 1788), Portsmouth, New Hampshire; to his nephew William King Atkinson (1765–1838), Dover, New Hampshire; in 1838 to his daughter Frances Atkinson Freeman (Mrs. Asa Freeman) (b. 1797), Dover; by 1878 to her nieces Mrs. Mary Wendell Copp Tredick of Nokesville, Virginia, and Mrs. Charlotte King Atkinson Copp Wadleigh, Union, New Hampshire; to Mrs. Tredick’s son Edward Tredick, Philadelphia; sold about 1903 to William H. Wentworth, Lexington, Massachusetts. Purchased from Frank W. Bayley, Boston.2

References
"Portsmouth," New Hampshire Gazette, May 31, 1823.

"Settlement of New Hampshire. Centennial Celebration," Collections, Historical and Miscellaneous; and Monthly Literary Journal 2, no. 6 (June 1823): 196.

Perkins 1878, 386, 387.

Wentworth 1878, I, 301.

Metropolitan 1911, 27–28.

Bayley 1917a, n.p.

Ehrich Galleries 1918, 19.

"Recent Acquisitions", Worcester Bulletin 9, no. 1 (April 1918): 15.

Park 1918b, 23–25.

Morgan 1919a, 33 n 17.

Park 1919b, 140.

Rowe 1920, 3.

Worcester 1922, 94–95.

Park 1923a, 15–16 and opp. 16.

Bayley 1929, 63.

Bolton and Binsse 1930a, 51, 88.

Morgan and Foote 1937, 50.

Coburn 1937, 72, 75.

American Portraits 1939, I, 18, no. 89.

Sibley and Shipton VI, 1942, opp. 222, 231.

Worcester 1943.

Dresser 1945, 202, 205, and fig. 4.

Worcester 1948, 76 fig. 102.

Larkin 1949, 52 and 53.

Pierson and Davidson 1960, 286 fig. 2355.

Wright 1966, 196, 197 plate 132.

Dresser 1971, 476 fig. 6 and 477.

Brewster 1972, 191.

Worcester 1973, 150.

Reutlinger 1975, 18 fig. 15 and 19.

Aykroyd 1975, 242.

Eastman and Eastman 1976, 10.

Teitz 1979, 22–23.

Singer 1986, 9, 77–78, 251.

Wilderson 1994, 48.

Prosser 1995, 186.

Rebora 1995, 180.

Exhibitions
Centennial Exhibition
, Franklin Hall, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, May 1823.

Exhibition of Colonial Portraits, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 6–December 31, 1911, cat. no. 1.

New England Painting, 1700–1775, Worcester Art Museum, February 17–March 31, 1943, cat. no. 29, n.p.

The Colonial Epoch in America, Worcester Art Museum, April 18, 1975–January 4, 1976, cat. p. 18.

American Art from the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, April 27–June 24, 1979, cat. pp. 22–23.

Notes
1. This portrait also has been published as: Portrait of Colonel Theodore Atkinson (Park 1918b, 24; Worcester 1922, 94–95); Portrait of Theodore Atkinson (Worcester Bulletin 9, no. 1 (April 1918), 15); Theodore Atkinson, Sr. (Metropolitan 1911, 27); and Theodore Atkinson (Bayley 1929, 63).

2. Wentworth 1878, 299–301, gives familial relations and lists Mrs. Freeman as owner of the portraits after the death of her parents. Perkins 1878, 386–87, gives Mary Tredick and Charlotte Wadleigh as the owners. William H. Wentworth to the Worcester Art Museum, May 15, 1918; Information Supplied by Martha Williams Pike, Boston, February 1938. Curatorial files for the Cleveland Museum of Art’s portrait of Mrs. Atkinson give William King Atkinson, Mary Wendell Tredick, and Charlotte King Atkinson Wadleigh as owners of that portrait. Kathleen E. McKeever, Cleveland Museum of Art, to Laura K. Mills, April 2, 1999. All correspondence in object file, Worcester Art Museum.