Robert Hare, Sr., and His Daughter Martha

Robert Hare, founder of the Hare family in America, was a prominent Philadelphia businessman, politician and speaker of the Pennsylvania Senate. He was born in 1752 in Woolwich, Kent County, England, the son of Richard Hare and Martha Harford. He came to Philadelphia in 1773 and met and married Margaret Willing, with whom he had six children. In this portrait, his six-year-old daughter Martha (1770-1852) stands beside him, held there by his arm around her waist. She serves as a symbol of Hare’s prosperity and the family’s future in America.

Gilbert Stuart is considered one of the leading American artists of the eighteenth century and a master portraitist. A native of Rhode Island, Stuart studied in London at the Royal Academy under Benjamin West and returned to the United States in 1793, living in Philadelphia from 1795 to 1805. There, Stuart painted his most well-known series of portraits, those depicting George Washington, who sat for the artist while he was President.