Description:
Framed oil portrait of Captain Robert Stoddard, Sr. (1719-1776) of Newport, Rhode Island, by John Greenwood (1729-1792). Greenwood was trained in an apprenticeship to a sign painter and engraver, Thomas Johnston, from 1742 to 1745. He had access to engraved copies of popular English oil paintings, which he copied, and his earliest portrait dates to 1747. Greenwood left Boston in 1752 for Surinam and then spent the rest of his life in London where he was a founding member of the Society of Artists. During his early years in Boston, his style was an important influence on the young John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), with whom he remained friendly and took pride in Copley's achievements in London. Captain Robert Stoddard was a wealthy merchant and ship owner who married Mary Pease (1738-1765) in 1756. Mary Peace was the daughter of Martha (1698-1779) and Simon Pease (1695-1769), a prominent citizen of Newport who was a member of the Rhode Island Assembly, assistant governor, and one of the incoporators of Rhode Island University (now Brown University). Captain Robert's second wife was Catherine Wanton (b.1745) of Newport whom he married in 1767. According to written material and photographs by sisters Mary Stoddard Lewis and Jonnie Louise Lewis which came with the Robert Stoddard, Jr. portrait (HD 1269), in 1938 they sold the Robert, Jr. portrait and one of Captain Robert Stoddard (probably HD 1677) to Albert Duveen (1892-1965), a noted New York art dealer of the early to mid 20th century; and that Robert Stoddard, Jr., bequeathed the two portraits to his son, Robert William Stoddard (1793-1838). Robert William Stoddard left these two portraits and a portrait of Simon Peace (willed to him by his great aunt) to his sister, Hannah Stoddard Thompson. Hannah left the three portraits plus a portrait of herself and pastel of her husband to her niece, Mary Elizabeth Stoddard, daughter of Robert William Stoddard and wife of James Thomas Lewis; Mary Elizabeth was the mother of the two sisters. The Underhill Collection has the correspondence and papers of Underhill and Stoddard descendent (through Robert Jr.'s first daughter Sarah who married William Underhill in 1798), Myron C. Taylor (1874-1959), Chairman and CEO of U.S. Steel and diplomat, that Duveen was acting as Taylor's agent in the 1930s in buying family-related material such as Robert Feke’s portrait of Simon Pease (probably the one mentioned above), which appears in "Portraits of George Washington and Other Eighteenth Century Americans: Loan Exhibition Sponsored by the Sons of the American Revolution February 13 to March 4 1939" (New York: M Knoedler & Company, 1939). The papers have also a copy of another Stoddard descendent, Josephine Frost’s article, “Pease-Stoddard Bible Record,” torn from the April 1938, "New York Genealogical & Biographical Society Record." There is no record in that correspondence of Taylor buying these two Stoddard portraits, or of where they were until bought by the Flynts in 1950 from Ginsburg & Levy. This portrait shows a half-length view of the clean-shaven Stoddard, looking forward, wearing a wig with two curled rows on each side; dressed in a brown jacket with button over a brown waistcoat with gold trim and buttons and white cravat; and holding a black tricorner hat under his arm. The gilt, pierced, and floral design-carved frame is original.
Label Text:
Unnamed Figures, May 1, 2024-August 4, 2024: In the 18th century Newport, Rhode Island, comprised a growing, White, merchant class profiting from the slave trade and distant plantations. Merchants exported distilled rum from molasses along Newport wharfs, sent liquor to the West Coast of Africa, and participated in the Middle Passage by selling enslaved people to plantations in the West Indies. Various Rhode Islanders, such as Newport resident Captain Robert Stoddard (1719-1776), facilitated the trade of enslaved people. Shortly after John Greenwood created this portrait, Stoddard began his slave trade voyages in 1751 and delivered enslaved Africans to the British West Indies. During these voyages, he transported the enslaved Black man, Ormand Remington, to Jamestown, Rhode Island. Remington purchased his freedom from Gershom Remington, and moved to Newport when he was 78 years old.
Within this colonial economy, 18th-century oil portraits conveyed the privilege, power, and wealth of White, elite sitters, and reinforced racial hierarchies. In many portraits of wealthy New Englanders, the role of enslaved people is notably absent, only referenced in the form of luxury goods and commodities. Artist John Greenwood painted a group portrait of New England captains in the Dutch colony of Suriname, now a rare document of the transatlantic slave trade. Many of Rhode Island’s slave traders are depicted enjoying punch, playing cards, dancing, and smoking pipes, while being served by enslaved Black men.
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