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of the youth to art with the kisses of the women and the laying on of hands by the men —a
performance which Dunlap points out would be entirely contrary to Quaker custom, and which could never have
occurred as described, although it is probable that it was at this time, the boy having attained his
sixteenth year, that it was decided that he was to make painting his profession. He consequently returned to
Philadelphia, where he lived for the next few years with his brother-in-law, continuing his studies with
Provost Smith in the evenings, but devoting the day to portrait painting. He also found time to paint a
composition of "The Trial of Susannah," "drawing the principal figures from life," says Gait, but Dunlap who
had seen it says that the composition was largely from a print.
He was living at this time most frugally to save enough
money for a visit to Europe, and it was this consideration which caused him to pass a year in New York. The
city was distasteful to him, and he found there less intellectual and refined life than in Philadelphia ; but
he could charge £10for a half-length portrait and for a head, double his
previous rates. His economies were finally sufficient for a short trip in Italy, which he was enabled to make
under exceptionally favorable conditions. A ship laden with wheat and flour was being sent to Messrs.
Rutherford and Jackson in Leghorn, a well-known firm, and Mr. Allen their Philadelphia agent, wishing his son
to see something of the world, decided to send him abroad by her, which Provost Smith hearing of at once
begged that West might accompany him. This was granted and in addition a Mr. Kelly, whose portrait he was
painting at the time, presented him with an order for £5oon his agents.
He reached Rome in July of 1760, where the picturesqueness of his position as the member of
a strange and fantastic religious sect come from the distant wilds of America (still a half-fabulous country)
to study the fine arts was in every way calculated to arouse the interest and curiosity of the society of
cosmopolitan dilettanti settled there. His courier spread his fame and the day of his arrival, before he had
had time to dress, he was called on by Mr. Robinson, afterward Lord Grantham, who took him that evening to a
party where he met some of the best people in Rome, including the old Cardinal Albani, whose blindness had
not diminished his reputation as a
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