Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object Name |
Portrait |
Title |
Ann Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge |
Catalog Number |
1949.10 |
Creator |
Harding, Chester |
Date |
ca. 1840 |
Material(s) |
Paint/Canvas |
Dimensions |
H-40.125 W-35.5 D-2.5 inches |
Description |
This is a bust portrait of Ann Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge (Mrs. Robert J. Breckinridge). She has brown hair parted in the middle with curls on the sides. She has brown eyes and thin arched brows. She is wearing a black dress and a tan shawl trimmed in red, blue, and yellow paisley. There is a grey-brown background. This painting is attributed to Chester Harding. |
Notes |
Ann Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge was born in Abingdon, Virginia, to Gen. Francis Smith Preston and Sarah Buchanan Campbell in 1803. She was known as "Sophy." She married Kentucky native Dr. Robert Jefferson Breckinridge in Abingdon, VA on in 1823. They had eleven children. In 1844, just three months after giving birth to her last child, Sophy died in Baltimore. Her husband was a lawyer, Kentucky state legislator, political/social speaker against chattel slavery, and ordained pastor. A few years after Sophy's death, he returned to Kentucky to pastor the First Presbyterian Church in Lexington. He later became the first Professor of Exegetic, Didactic, and Polemic Theology in the Presbyterian seminary at Danville, Kentucky (now the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary). The artist, Chester Harding, was born in 1792 and died in 1866. The artist may have been, however, Alfred Jacab Miller of Baltimore, MD who was born in 1810 and died in 1874. This may be a copy of his circa 1857 painting. |
Collection |
Edith Abbott Collection |
People |
Harding, Chester Miller, Alfred Jacob Breckinridge, Ann Sophonisba Preston |
Subjects |
Painting Paintings Portraits Portrait paintings Oil paintings |
Physical Holder |
Kentucky Historical Society - KHS |