Reverend Cotton Mather
Reverend Cotton Mather
- Collection ID
- ART.001402
- Type
- Art
- Date
- 1728
- Geography
- United States
- Language
- N/A
- Medium
- Engraved Mezzotint
- Dimensions
- 22.5 × 18.5 × 1 in. (57.2 × 47 × 2.5 cm)
- Exhibit Location
- On View in the Bowden Gallery of Biblical Art, Impact of the Bible in the World
This is the first mezzotint portrait made in America. Artist Peter Pelham arrived in the colonies in 1727 and asked Cotton Mather to sit for him. Mezzotint is an intaglio printmaking technique that produces tonal gradients and a soft, velvety effect, as opposed to a sharp line etching.
Cotton Mather (1663–1728) was a Puritan minister in colonial Boston. He wrote extensively on theology, history, and science, and was a regular contributor to political discourse, famously clashing with Joseph Dudley, the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
Printed in 1728. Acquired by 2019 by Ted Steinbock, private collector, Louisville, Kentucky; Privately purchased in 2020 by Museum of the Bible, Washington, DC.
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