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New Castle, Delaware
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Gunning Bedford Sr.



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Gunning Bedford Sr.   (1742-1797)


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Title/OccupationGovernor (1796-97), Trustee NCC
Address6 The Strand
ArtistRobert Edge Pine
Date painted1784-1788
CreditWinterthur Museum
MarriedMary Read (1745-1820, m1769, sister of George Read Sr.)
ParentsWilliam Bedford & Catherin Jacquett
ChildrenNone
Link

Courtesy, Winterthur Museum, Portrait, Gunning Bedford, Sr. by Robert Edge Pine, 1784-1788, Philadelphia, PA, Oil paint, Canvas, Gift of Henry Francis du Pont, 1958.3042

Wikipedia

The Smithsonian database lists 16 Gunning Bedford paintings: Sr, Jr, and undetermined. There is a painting listed of Gunning Bedford, Sr., by Charles Willson Peale and owned by the Kennedy Gallery in New York. It was sold by them to an unnamed collector from Delaware.

Engravings of the Pine portrait were made in the late 1800s and published as in this image from the New York Public Library.

George Read Sr. wrote letters about Bedford's courtship of Read's sister Polly [Mary?], Read's mother's opposition, Read's support, and William T. Read's positive description of Bedford: "integrity, coupled with great benevolence and with very bland and kindly manners, made him highly popular."




Jim Meek
nc-chap.org 2014, 2015