Artist: Francis Blackwell Mayer (1827-1899)
Title: Annapolis in 1750
Date: 1876
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 32 x 47"
Accession number: MSA SC 4680-10-0064
Annapolis in 1750 depicts a typical morning visit by one socially prominent family to another during the period of Annapolis’s “Golden Age.” The setting is the portico of the house of Charles Carroll the Barrister, a Revolutionary War patriot and member of both the Lower House and the Senate, and his father Dr. Charles Carroll. Calling on the Carrolls are members of the Calvert family whose Arms appear on the door of the sedan chair. Glimpsed through the trees in the Maryland State House, which Charles Carroll the Barrister was instrumental in planning and building as one of the “Superintendents” appointed in 1769 to oversee the new State House. Although the State House dome was not completed until after the Barrister’s death in 1783, its presence is symbolic of the important role he played in early Maryland history. This painting is understood to be an artist’s romanticized interpretation of social life in colonial Maryland.
Annapolis in 1750 was the first commission awarded by the Peabody Institute, in 1873, just two years after it had opened. The artist chosen, Francis Blackwell Mayer, is renowned for memorializing significant events in Maryland’s history, such as The Planting of the Colony of Maryland and The Burning of the Peggy Stewart. both on display in the State House.