Brown, James (1753-1813)
Role: Rhode Island Sea CaptainDates:
Portrait Location: Library-Annex 200
Artist: Unknown Artist ()
Portrait Date: 1798
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Framed Dimensions:
Brown Portrait Number: 191
Brown Historical Property Number: 1382
This portrait is said to be the likeness of a "Captain James Brown," and while there were several sea captains of that name in eighteenth-century Providence, this particular Captain James Brown is virtually unknown today. According to the dates provided by the portrait's donor, the James Brown pictured in this painting was born in 1753. If so, he was a fifth generation descendant of Chad Brown, one of Providence, Rhode Island's original settlers and ancestor to Nicholas Brown (BP 2), Brown University's namesake and benefactor. Nicholas's grandfather was the well-known Captain James Brown (1698 - 1739.) Ancestor Chad Brown and his wife Elizabeth had six sons, and the subject of this portrait descended in a different line than the branch of the family associated with Brown University, making him a fourth cousin to the university's Nicholas Brown. The subject is wearing clothing of a style popular in late-eighteenth century Rhode Island (see the portrait of Captain Abraham Whipple, BP 167), which makes it likely that he is indeed the late-eighteenth-century James Brown and not the grandfather of Brown University's benefactor, who died in 1739, or Nicholas's older brother James, who died in 1750. Nicholas Brown had a nephew James, situated in the late eighteenth century, but he was not a sea captain.
The artist of this handsome life-size portrait is unknown, but the painting bears the date of 1798. The painting was given to Brown in 1962 by Sarah Crosby Dunleavy of Thompson, Connecticut. The donor recorded that she was the great-great granddaughter of the subject of this painting, "Captain James Brown." However, a Brown family genealogy identifies her as a descendant of Nicholas Brown rather than of the subject of this portrait.