Sayles, William Clarke (1855 - 1876)
Role: Brown University StudentDates: 1874 - 1876
Portrait Location: Sayles Hall 100
Artist: Healy, George P.A. (1813 - 1894)
Portrait Date: 1881
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 37" x 61"
Framed Dimensions:
Brown Portrait Number: 62
Brown Historical Property Number: 2241
Born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, William Clark Sayles was one of six children of industrialist William Francis Sayles (see BP 63) and Mary Wilkenson Fessenden. He died in 1876 during his sophomore year at Brown. In his memory, his father donated funds for the erection of Sayles Hall. His portrait, along with that of his father, hangs today in the entrance of this campus building.
George P. A. Healy was a well-known American portraitist and historical painter from Boston. Healy had studied in Paris and later lived and worked in Europe and America, residing in Chicago at the time of his death. His reputation as a fine portraitist led to a commission from King Louis Philippe I in France in 1842 for portraits of the American presidents. As the king was overthrown six years later, the fifteen completed works were never delivered and now hang in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Healy's sitters include Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Pope Pius IX, and Louisa May Alcott. The portrait of young William Sayles was commissioned by his father after his death, and completed at the same time as the father's portrait. This painting and its elaborate gilded frame were restored when Sayles Hall was renovated in 2002. An unspotted engraver's mistake caused the brass plaque of both this painting and the one of Sayles's father to read "Request of William Sayles" instead of "Bequest of William Sayles."