Brown, James (1698-1739)
Role:Dates:
Portrait Location: Annmary Brown Memorial
Artist: Ingham, Charles Cromwell (1796 - 1863)
Portrait Date:
Medium:
Dimensions: 24 1/2
Framed Dimensions: 35 1/2
Brown Portrait Number: 48
Brown Historical Property Number: 1171
James Brown looks every inch the stern patriarch of a powerful New England family in this profile, which was copied by society artist Charles C. Ingham from an earlier rendering executed by a local Providence engraver, William Hamlin. James Brown (1698-1739) was a sea captain who began the Brown family's involvement in trade. He was the father of the "four brothers," John, Joseph, Nicholas, and Moses, who vastly strengthened the family's place in the ranks of rich, powerful New Englanders, via their dedication to the mercantile empire founded by their father. His grandson, the second Nicholas Brown, used the wealth that his family accumulated and that he himself acquired to endow the university which now bears his name.
Charles C. Ingham was born in 1796, in Dublin, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States in 1817. He established a very fashionable studio in New York City. He was sought as a portrait painter and miniaturist, and is best known for his flattering forays into female portraiture. This painting, presented to Brown University by Carrie Brown Bajnotti in 1885, was a copy Ingham made of a profile by William Hamlin, who in turn had created his likeness of James Brown long after the latter's death.