Charles Peale Polk
Shinah Solomon Etting (Mrs. Elijah Etting)
1792
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, Framed: 40 1/8 × 32 1/2 × 2 3/8 in. (101.9 × 82.6 × 6 cm.)
Sight: 35 1/2 × 27 1/2 in. (90.2 × 69.9 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William C. Whitridge, Stevenson, Maryland
Object Number
1968.14
This sitter, Shinah Solomon Etting (1744–1842), was a prominent Jewish matriarch in early America and was depicted by Charles Peale Polk with a smiling face and stylish dress. Widowed at age 34 and with 7 children to support, she moved in 1780 from her home state of Pennsylvania to the city of Baltimore, where she ran a boarding house to support her family. Her thriving business enabled her to commission this portrait, a reflection of Etting’s personal resilience. The respected position her family achieved in Baltimore society was further exemplified by her son Solomon’s later civic leadership.
Subject to her daughter, Fanny Etting Taylor; to her daughter, Jane Taylor Poor; to her daughter, Cornelia Poor Mayer; to her daughter, Jane Mayer Bradford; Adams-Davidson and Company, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1967
Adams-Davidson and Company, Inc., Washington, D.C., Catalogue, 1967, pp. 2, 37, no. 65, ill. [incorrectly identified as Jane Etting Taylor, daughter of Shinah Etting and wife of Robert Tavlor]
Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore, "Star Spangled Heritage of Baltimore Jewry-Bicentennial Celebration," Jan. 18-Mar. 14, 1976, n.p., no. 1
BMA, "Maryland Heritage," Apr. 20-June 20, 1976, p. 80, no. 42, ill.
DAR Museum, Washington, D.C., "The Jewish Community in Early America: 1654-1830," Dec. 11, 1980-Mar. 15, 1981, p. 3
Linda Crocker Simmons, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., "Charles Peale Polk, 1767-1822, A Limner and his Likenesses," July 18-Sept. 6, 1981, p. 42, no. 57, ill. (circulated to Williamsburg)
Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore, "Star Spangled Heritage of Baltimore Jewry-Bicentennial Celebration," Jan. 18-Mar. 14, 1976, n.p., no. 1
BMA, "Maryland Heritage," Apr. 20-June 20, 1976, p. 80, no. 42, ill.
DAR Museum, Washington, D.C., "The Jewish Community in Early America: 1654-1830," Dec. 11, 1980-Mar. 15, 1981, p. 3
Linda Crocker Simmons, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., "Charles Peale Polk, 1767-1822, A Limner and his Likenesses," July 18-Sept. 6, 1981, p. 42, no. 57, ill. (circulated to Williamsburg)
Davidson, Ruth. “Museum Accessions,” Antiques 94 (November, 1968): 680, illus.; Maryland Heritage, p. 80, item 42, illus.;
Simmons, Linda Crocker. "Charles Peale Polk: A Limner and his Likenesses," Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, July 18 to September 6, 1981, and at four other museums, September 27, 1981 - October 15, 1982. [Catalog of an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, July 18 - September 6, 1981]
Sona K. Johnston, "American Painting 1750-1900 from the Collection of The Baltimore Museum of Art," 1983, pp. 130-131, ill. p. 131.
Beeber, Emily Rose, "Shinah Solomon Etting: Jewish Matriarch of Early Baltimore," online article, Baltimore Museum of Art, March 3, 2024.
https://stories.artbma.org/shinah-solomon-etting-jewish-matriarch-of-early-baltimore/
Inscribed: Signed on lower left: “C.P. Polk pinxit 1792”
On View: American Wing Second Floor, Scott 07
