In this artwork, how is the History and possible subject identities discussed?
The portrait may have been owned at one time by local Rhode Island historian Stephen Randall (1793–1874), who took special interest in his ancestor Roger Williams (ca. 1603–1683), the Puritan, Baptist, and founder of Providence Plantations. Randall may have gifted it to Redwood. In 1927, Providence artist Wilfred Duphinney suggested that the subject may in fact be Roger Williams himself.
Wilber Cheesman Nelson was the author of a 95-page booklet on John Clarke (1609–1676), one of the founders of Portsmouth and Newport, Rhode Island. He popularized the notion in 1938 that it is a portrait of Clarke, a physician and Baptist minister, and this has been the popular choice ever since. Clarke biographer Louis Franklin Asher (d. 1996) even featured the portrait on the dust cover of his 1997 book.
There is no evidence, however, for either of these two identifications. The subject of the painting is indicated as being 59 years old in 1639 and would, therefore, have been born about 1580, thereby ruling out both Williams and Clarke. Asher proposes that the dates on the painting are a mistake for 1659, but he advances no rationale for how such a curious double error could have come about.
Providence Portsmouth Newport, Rhode Island John Clarke Rhode Island Roger Williams Providence Plantations