Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia
House & Collection John S. Copley Michael Francklin Susanna Francklin
The Portrait of Susanna Francklin
This portrait c. 1762 of Susanna (Boutineau) Francklin is
oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches (64 x 76 cm); it is probably
in its original frame. Although unsigned and undated, the
painting is by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), the foremost
portrait painter in Boston at the time, and today the best
known colonial American portrait artist.
Susanna (Boutineau) Francklin’s portrait is one of four significant 18th-century works on display at Uniacke Estate Museum Park. Painted by John Singleton Copley about 1762, the portrait has a strong link with the history of Nova Scotia and with the house at Uniacke Estate Museum Park. The painting, in its period frame, was purchased for the Nova Scotia Museum collection in 2004.
A fine example of Copley’s accomplished portraiture, the painting of Susanna Francklin was part of the furnishing in Uniacke House from 1847 until 1927. Portraits of her husband, Michael, and of her parents, the Boutineaus, are also on public display at the house.
These four portraits with a Nova Scotia connection form a significant Canadian collection of American colonial portrait painting. Born in 1741, Susanna was a daughter of the prominent Boston merchant James Boutineau and Susanna (Faneuil) Boutineau, who were married there in 1738. Their daughter married Michael Francklin in Boston, 7 February 1762.
This
portrait is one of a pair, which must have been painted in 1761 or
1762, to mark their wedding, They were brought to Nova Scotia when
the young couple moved to Halifax in November 1762. Michael served
as lieutenant-governor of the colony of Nova Scotia for several periods
in the 1760s and early 1770s.
He died in 1782.
| Susanna Francklin continued to live in Windsor, where she died in her 76th year, on 19 April 1816. Her body was interred in the Old Parish Burying Ground in Windsor, near her home. |
|
Eventually, Susanna’s portrait passed to her granddaughter, and then by marriage into the Uniacke family. The portrait remained in Uniacke house with the family. In 1927, several portraits became the property of a granddaughter of James Boyle Uniacke, fifth son of Richard John Uniacke and were shipped to Europe.
The return of this portrait to Uniacke House
In 2005, Susanna's portrait rejoined that of her husband and of her parents. The four portraits together are a very unusual survival of 18th-century portraits from one family by two of the most prominent American portrait artists of that century. All were brought to Nova Scotia by the sitters themselves, before and during the War of Independence. Presentation in a room together at Mount Uniacke is exceptional. There, the portraits are shown in a domestic setting surrounded by original Uniacke family furniture and accessories, in one of the most important Georgian-style buildings in Canada.