Beck, Paul
Paul Beck, Jr. (1760-1844), was a distinguished Philadelphia merchant and philanthropist. Appointed to the post of Port Warden, Beck helped to improved the city's shipping facilities and was instrumental in building a canal to connect the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays. Among the many charitable institutions served by Beck was the Ludwick Institute, founded in 1801 as a free school for poor children. For many years its vice president, Beck bequeathed to it a property at 6th and Catharine Streets. In 1859 the Institute removed to that site (which became known as the Beck School House) and soon after it commissioned this portrait.
Executed by Thomas Sully (1783-1872) in 1860, this portrait was copied from an earlier one he had painted in 1813. An Athenaeum shareholder from 1818 to 1822, Sully was Philadelphia's leading portraitist. His canvases show a fine use of colors and textures, as well as an attention to detail. In this example he has included a biographical accessory, the gold snuff box given to Beck in 1812 by Major William Jackson (1759-1828), once personal secretary to George Washington.
The Ludwick Institute has long met at the Athenaeum and a majority of its managers are usually also directors of the Athenaeum.
Sully, Thomas
1860 (From an 1813 Portrait)
http://www.philaathenaeum.org/rights.html
1959.06.01
Eves, Joseph Bennett
Joseph Bennett Eves was one of the founders and first president of the Ludwick Institute. Incorporated in 1801 as the Philadelphia Society for the Establishment of Charity Schools, it took the name of its original benefactor, German-born Christopher Ludwick (d.1801), in 1872. Director of Baking in the Army of the United States under Washington, and a Philadelphia civic leader, Ludwick left an $8,000 estate "for the schooling and educating gratis, of poor children of all denominations, in the city and liberties of Philadelphia."
The University of Pennsylvania, originally founded as a charity school, had also been anxious to receive this bequest, but Governor Thomas McKean maintained that it would go to the first organization to submit documents of incorporation in the Rolls Office at Lancaster. Thus, a messenger from the University, on horseback, and Joseph Bennett Eves, in a sulky, set out from Philadelphia in a "hot race...but Eves soon distanced his competitor and arrived in Lancaster, sixty-six miles distant, in seven hours," establishing legal claim to the Ludwick legacy.
The Ludwick Institute remains in existence today. Its assets have grown considerably, and it supports a wide range of programs to benefit poor children. The Institute has, for many years, held its meetings at the Athenaeum.
Anonymous [Monogram TA]
http://www.philaathenaeum.org/rights.html
1959.07.01