# Elizabeth Grant Bankson Beatty (Mrs. James Beatty) and Her Daughter Susan

- By: Joshua Johnson (American, c. 1763–after 1825)
- Date: c. 1805
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 82.9 × 72.8 cm (32 5/8 × 28 5/8 in.)
- Culture: Baltimore
- Credit line: Purchased with funds provided by Robin and Timm R. Reynolds and Jill Burnside Zeno; Bulley and Andrews, Edna Graham, Love Galleries, Mary Swissler Oldberg, Ratcliffe Foundation, and Quinn E. Delaney funds; Walter Aitken, Dr. Julian…
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/150054)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/83802ee1-1682-6de0-7276-37c4ab3fa879/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Joshua Johnson portrayed his fashionably dressed sitter Elizabeth Beatty wearing a circlet of glass beads that accentuates her brown hair and gray eyes. The child’s clothes are equally elegant: she sports a high-waisted, white-muslin gown and holds a brightly colored strawberry, a delicacy often featured in the artist’s portraits. Johnson was the first known Black painter to gain professional recognition in the United States. Listed in the 1816 Baltimore city directory as a “free householder of Colour,” he had been freed by his enslaver (and father) around 1782 after apprenticing as a blacksmith. Described as “self-taught” in a newspaper advertisement, Johnson attracted local patrons among the city’s artisan and middle-class families.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0