Greenwood, one of the first native-born American painters, received his initial training from Bostonian Thomas Johnston, a heraldic painter and engraver. Johnston no doubt introduced Greenwood to the British mezzotints that served most colonial portraitists as patterns for their images. Here, Greenwood employed one of the most popular gestures of eighteenth-century female portraiture-lifting a flower from the lap and holding it at the breast.

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