• Was an early American portrait painter. • He was born in Philadelphia, the only child of James and Mary (Clark) Benbridge. • When he was fourteen years old he may have watched John Wollaston paint Gordon's portrait. • When he was 21, Benbridge was sent to Italy, where he studied with Pompeo Batoni and Anton Raphael Mengs. • In 1769, on commission from James Boswell, biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson, he made a portrait of Pasquale Paoli in Corsica which he took to London. • It was exhibited (1769) at the Free Society of Artists, and from it three mezzotints were scraped and published with the artist's name signed "Bembridge." • Like other young Americans he was encouraged by Benjamin West. • In Philadelphia Benbridge married Hetty Sage. • He was admitted on January 18, 1771, to membership in the American Philosophical Society, of which Benjamin Franklin was a founder. • He painted the large portrait of the Gordon family, with six figures, one of his masterpieces. • Suffering, however, from asthma, he sought a more congenial climate and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he succeeded Jeremiah Theus as the popular portrait painter of South Carolina. • Around 1800 Benbridge settled in Norfolk, Virginia. • At Norfolk he gave to Thomas Sully his first lessons in oil painting. • He had previously instructed Thomas Coram of Charleston. • Sully describes his master as "a portly man of good address–gentlemanly in his deportment."
