The Providence Athenæum

Newport-born portrait miniaturist Edward Greene Malbone sailed in 1801 for London, where he worked for six months and attempted to make the acquaintance of England's leading painters. His efforts were rewarded by a resounding professional endorsement from no less than the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Benjamin West who declared that no English painter could excel Malbone’s skill. Malbone's The Hours, completed during his stay in London, may well have been the work that West so admired. The three female figures represent the Greek horae, goddesses that personify the orderly passage of time.

Malbone never sold the work and, following his early death from tuberculosis in 1807, it descended to his sister, Harriet Whitehorne. Whitehorne hoped to sell the miniature to the Providence Athenæum in 1846, but her asking price of $1200 was prohibitively expensive. It was not until 1854 that the library was able to acquire The Hours, using funds raised by Eliza Patten, the teenage daughter of the Athenæum’s Vice-President.

Lancaster, Jane. Inquire Within: A Social History of the Providence Athenæum Since 1753. Providence Athenæum, 2003, pp. XXV, 85-89.

"The Hours."  The Providence Athenæum, 2019, www.providenceathenaeum.org/collections/art-collection/painting/.  Accessed 28 June 2019.

Lancaster, Jane. "Well Behaved Women?" The Universal Penman, Spring 2018, pp. 4-8.

Leonard, Grace Fisher.  The Providence Athenæum: A Brief History.  Providence, Privately Printed, 1939.