Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming

The portrait was painted in 1788 for Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming, members of a prominent Maryland family. It remained in the possession of their daughter, Mary Ridgely Palmer, who inherited it following the deaths of her parents, as indicated by the absence of the work from their respective wills and the inheritance pattern documented in genealogical records. The painting passed to Mary’s son, Edward Ridgely, and subsequently to her daughter-in-law, Alice Gardner Burnell Lockwood, by 1926.

It was sold by Lockwood and her husband in 1954 through Parke-Bernet Galleries and later acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 1966 as a gift.

The painting is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it is listed with the accession number 1966.6.6. It entered the museum through a gift from Morris Schapiro in 1966. The work was previously owned by Mary Ridgely Palmer, Luke Vincent Lockwood and Alice Gardner Burnell Lockwood, and was sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York in May 1954 before Schapiro acquired it.

The portrait entered the National Gallery of Art through the 1954 Parke-Bernet auction, where it was acquired by Morris Schapiro before being gifted to the museum in 1966. It remained in the Lockwood family collection in Greenwich, Connecticut, by 1926, as documented in the auction records. The work's provenance reflects a documented chain of ownership from the Ridgely family through Mrs. Henry Clay Palmer and the Lockwoods, with genealogical connections established through Maryland archives and scholarly research on Laming family descendants.

This trajectory illustrates the painting's journey from private family holdings to public collection, underscoring its significance within early American portraiture and the broader context of 18th-century American art.

Painted in 1788 by Charles Willson Peale, 'Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming' is a double portrait depicting the Maryland couple seated side by side on a garden bench. The composition places the figures against a soft, naturalistic landscape background, characteristic of Peale's post-Revolutionary War portraiture which often integrated sitters with their estates. Benjamin Laming is dressed in a white coat with gold buttons over a dark jacket, while Eleanor Laming wears a light dress featuring a floral pattern on the bodice and a blue sash.

She holds a branch bearing fruit, a traditional symbol of fertility and domestic abundance. Peale renders the couple with a relaxed, informal demeanor, moving away from the rigid formality of earlier colonial portraiture toward a more intimate, conversational style. This work exemplifies Peale's skill in capturing the status and character of the American gentry during the early Republic.

The painting remains a significant example of late 18th-century American portraiture, illustrating the artist's ability to blend individual likeness with symbolic elements of prosperity and family continuity.