A Portrait of Samuel Finley Attributed to John Hesselius

In 2016, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) undertook a major research initiative focusing on their collection of American paintings and sculpture to 1945. The project was directed by Kimberly Orcutt, who was then serving as Mellon Curator at Large at the IMA and who hired me to work in New York City on behalf of the museum. One of my objectives was to investigate a portrait of the eighteenth-century religious leader and academic the Reverend Samuel Finley (1715–1766) attributed to John Hesselius (1728–1778) (fig. 1). Through extensive primary source research, I was able to uncover evidence that strongly supports the attribution to Hesselius and assembled a more complete history of the picture and the family who owned it for almost two centuries before donating it to the IMA in 1962. I have also unraveled the relationship between this portrait and an 1870 copy by the little-known American painter Charles Walker Lind (c. 1842–c. 1880) (fig. 2). The copy is owned by Princeton University, where Finley served as president from 1761 until his death in 1766. Although it originally seemed to be just an unimportant copy, the Princeton painting turned out to be the key to unlocking the history of the original.

Samuel Finley was born in County Armagh, which is now in Northern Ireland, in 1715, and came to this country with his family at age nineteen.¹ Historians believe he trained as a Protestant minister at the Log College in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.² Finley came to be an influential preacher in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Maryland before being appointed in 1761 the fifth president of the College of New Jersey, which later became Princeton University.³

At Princeton, Finley was an effective president: he was a respected and influential teacher and the college’s enrollment grew steadily during his tenure. When he died in 1766 while undergoing medical treatment in Philadelphia, many Princeton students traveled there to pay respects and eight members of the senior class carried his body to the grave.⁴ Lind’s portrait of Finley was a gift of Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791–1872)—the great grandson of Samuel Finley and the grandfather of Charles Lind—who donated it to Princeton in 1870.⁵

As part of my work for the IMA, I wanted to confirm the attribution of their portrait. Because sources relating to Hesselius and his career are limited—there are no lists of sitters, ledgers, or diaries—I believed I was unlikely to find any documentation of an encounter with Finley there.⁶

The painter was active in the mid-Atlantic region from 1750 to 1778, particularly in Anne Arundel County in Maryland, but I have found no records of him meeting Finley. Likewise few of Finley’s papers survive, although a small collection—mostly comprising letters from the late 1750s and early 1760s—is preserved at Princeton University. My search of this material also yielded no evidence of a meeting between Finley and Hesselius.

Scarcity of primary source material is a problem that scholars of colonial portraits often run up against, making researching and attributing these works inherently difficult. Seeking alternative approaches to the IMA portrait, I decided to explore the history and provenance of the copy at Princeton. Although it was painted by an obscure descendant of Finley whose career also lacks documentation, the donor of the painting was the renowned inventor and painter Samuel F. B. Morse. His extensive personal papers, including letters and diaries, are available online through the Library of Congress and seemed liable to contain information about the portraits.

As I had hoped, in the Morse papers I found a number of letters pertaining to both the original portrait of Finley, attributed to Hesselius, and the copy by Lind. The letters indicate that Morse commissioned Lind to make the copy directly from the original with the intention of donating it to Princeton. More importantly, the Morse papers record that in 1869 and1870 the original clearly bore the inscription “J. Hesselius pinx.^t 1766.” What follows is the narrative I have reconstructed from the letters.

In early 1869, Morse borrowed the original portrait of Finley from his cousin William Peronneau Finley (1803–1876) of Aiken, South Carolina. William was the son of James Edwards Finley (1758–1719) and the grandson of Samuel Finely. On February 1, Morse wrote his cousin offering “many thanks for your most acceptable letter of family history” and saying that he was “anxiously waiting the receipt of the box with the picture.”⁷ A few months later, on April 16, 1869, Morse again wrote William, this time with a more extensive description of “the Portrait of our great and good Ancestor, President Finley.”

The Portrait arrived safely but I found it in a sad condition of disintegration. The defect in the eyes of the portrait is not from any direct violence to the surface, but is the effect of an original bad preparation of the canvas, which has caused the color to scale off, not only upon the eyes but on parts of the face and dress, in small portions. It was very fortunate that it was not submitted for remedy to any one unacquainted with the maladies of paintings, and more fortunate that it was sent here in time to arrest the progress of the disease, which in a very short time would have left nothing but the canvas.

I have in my vicinity a most skillful physician of pictures, and you & your father will be satisfied to learn that the painting bas been substantially fixed upon a new canvas, so that its further deterioration is effectually arrested. This now only necessary carefully to restore the parts that have scaled off and this I shall not boast to any one, for although I have not painted a picture for some 30 years, I intend to see that this portrait is perfectly restored. . . .

My wish is to make a copy of the Portrait for the gallery of Presidents of Nassau Hall. But this will take time in consequence of the pressure of other duties.⁸

Despite his intention to paint the copy, by the autumn of 1869 Morse had instead asked his grandson Charles Walker Lind to do it.⁹ Lind was born in Arroyo, Puerto Rico, the only son of Morse’s daughter Susan (1819–1885) and her husband, the wealthy island planter Edward Lind (b.?–d. 1882).¹⁰ He graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, and from about 1865 to 1869 he studied painting in Paris in the private atelier of Léon Bonnat (1833–1922).¹¹ He was in New York City for several months in the second half of 1869, during which Morse enlisted him to make the copy.¹² Lind was unable to complete the commission before returning to Puerto Rico that November and brought both the original and the unfinished canvas with him when he sailed home that month.¹³ Morse instructed Edward Lind to pay his son the sum of one hundred dollars in gold once he completed the copy, to be deducted from a debt that Edward owed Morse.¹⁴

By March 1870, Morse was anxious to have both portraits back in New York.¹⁵ They arrived the following month on a ship from Puerto Rico, as shown by a letter Morse wrote to the Collector of the Port of New York requesting him to waive any applicable import taxes.¹⁶ And so by May 1870 Morse was ready to return the original to his cousin William Peronneau Finley in South Carolina. In an accompanying letter to he wrote, “I am thinking there may possibly be some wonder expressed in your homestead in Aiken respecting the fate of the Portrait of our venerated ancestor Dr. Samuel Finley . . . . It has had adventures & travels, since it left the Sunny South.”¹⁷ Morse went on to reiterate the condition issues and treatment that he had outlined in his April 16, 1869 letter to his cousin.

He then explained making the copy to give to Princeton: “I intended originally to attempt this copy myself, but although ‘the spirit was willing’ I found the ‘flesh to be weak,’ and so I delegated the duty to my Grandson Charles Walker Lind . . . who is now a professional painter.”¹⁸ Finley’s letter suggests that he neglected to request his cousin’s permission to ship it back and forth to Puerto Rico. “Now came a difficulty,” he wrote describing the situation:

Shall I allow the young painter to take this precious original to the West Indies, and send both back when the copy was finished? I trembled to decide upon this latter proposition, for I appreciated the risk, but knowing his carefulness, I ventured to allow him to take the picture with him. So the Portrait has visited Puerto Rico. It is returned to me in perfect preservation. The copy is completed, and will be sent to Princeton in a few days, and the Original is packed and transmitted to you by Express.¹⁹

This letter contains the most in depth discussion of the original portrait and the most compelling evidence to support its attribution to Hesselius. “The picture is of a higher character as a picture than I at first supposed,” Finley wrote.

I find the name of the Artist upon it, to wit; “J. Hesselius pinx.^t 1766.” You will find it, if you have not before observed it, on the left of the picture about halfway down. From the date 1766, it must have been taken shortly before [Finley’s] death, which occurred in 1766 at the age of 50.²⁰

The inscription that Morse described is consistent with those that appear on other works by Hesselius, including Mrs. Richard Galloway (1764; The Metropolitan Museum of Art).²¹ (figs. 3, 4) The artist usually inscribed his canvases on the back; Morse does not state whether the inscription he recorded was on the front or the back of the canvas. Members of the IMA staff have thus far been unable to find any inscription on the canvas. This is not altogether surprising: we know from Morse’s letter to his cousin that the painting underwent extensive conservation and relining in 1869.

The IMA curatorial files document that the painting was in extremely poor condition when it entered their collection, and that it underwent additional conservation in 1965. This campaign included removing and replacing the 1869 lining, which had become brittle and separated from the canvas; and addressing extensive paint loss on the surface, including removing the 1869 restorer’s oil paint and then infilling the losses with gesso and acrylic paint.²² Considering the condition issues the painting suffered and the extent of the two conservation efforts, it is possible that the inscription that Morse recorded was inadvertently covered or removed. I have suggested that the IMA complete a more thorough examination.

We can feel certain that the portrait in the IMA is the same one that William Peronneau Finley sent to Samuel F. B. Morse. Research in the genealogy of the Finley family reveals that the provenance of the work is straightforward from the sitter, Samuel Finley, to Marietta Davis Finley Hahn, who donated it to the IMA in 1962.²³

Rev. Samuel Finley (1715–1766) m. Sarah Hall

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James Edwards Finley (1758–1819) m. Mary Peronneau

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William Peronneau Finley (1803–1876) m. Anna Maria Harris Gibson

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Leighton Finley (1856–1894) m. Ida Davis

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Marietta Davis Finley (1890–1969) m. Vernon Hahn

 

For me one of the most compelling aspects of art historical research is the problem solving involved, in particular strategizing different and unexpected ways to find information. This is especially useful in researching colonial portraits, where source material is often scarce. My decision to delve into the Princeton portrait of Finley by Lind, instead of simply disregarding it as an uninspired copy, led to a valuable trove of information about the “adventures & travels” of the IMA painting. Although I do not know whether the museum will change their designation to “by” Hesselius rather than “attributed to,” particularly if conservators are unable to locate the inscription Morse detailed, I do believe that this documentation reinforces the attribution and adds valuable details to the history of the painting.

 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/24716839.1592

PDF: Fort – Portrait of Samuel Finley

Notes:

About the Author(s): Megan Holloway Fort is an independent art historian.

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