Images in Question

 

 John Brown’s portrait painted by Ohio

artist while Brown Awaited Execution

                                                

                                                                                                           –Judith Sweets © 2014

More than 150 years have passed since the Harpers Ferry Raid by abolitionist John Brown and his men, yet interest in John Brown, who died on the gallows in Charlestown, West Virginia in December of 1859 has not waned. Researchers continue to make compelling discoveries and connections about Brown-related images and documents.

I was privileged to make one such discovery recently as a result of researching early 1900s Ohio newspapers. I found two articles that told of artist and veteran photographer, Jeremiah Merritt Greene’s connection with John Brown and provided images of a painting Greene began of John Brown as the abolitionist awaited execution.  

Jeremiah Greene, or “Jerry” Greene [1829-1916] as he was called by many, was one of the longest-working artists in the Midwest. He worked for a time with photographer, James F. Ryder before establishing his own gallery in Cleveland, Ohio.  Greene claimed to have known John Brown for many years. John Brown’s family had settled in nearby Hudson, Ohio when John Brown was about 5 years old.  Later, in the early 1850s when the Brown family lived in the Adirondacks and Greene lived in Syracuse, New York he visited the Brown family yearly on hunting and fishing expeditions in the Adirondacks.

In 1901 Jeremiah Greene gave an interview for the Cleveland Leader and told an incredible story of starting a full length portrait of John Brown while Brown was in jail awaiting his execution. Greene related that John Brown’s brother had commissioned the painting at a cost of $500. In this article Greene claimed that he “succeeded in getting into the prison where he [John Brown] was confined” and actually worked on the oil painting, though not completing it before Brown’s execution. Greene described  John Brown’s demeanor while incarcerated: 

"He was almost always cheerful in jail, although he knew that he was to be hanged for treason, and he sat for me to paint his portrait very patiently, talking about the old times before he had become a national character and when we used to be pretty good friends.”

 

Greene lamented that because of financial setbacks, John Brown’s brother was not able to pay for the painting so the portrait was never claimed and was still hanging in his studio at the time of the 1901 interview. He noted it received some fire and water damage when it was temporarily at Betseger's picture framing store in Cleveland years before during a fire. He also indicated that he had cut off the bottom half of the painting because of  damage in that area and he had oiled the back of the painting to “restore durability.”

In 1904 Jeremiah Greene was interviewed again by the Cleveland Leader and at that time he once more discussed the John Brown portrait that he was commissioned to paint in November of 1859. He added additional details, but this time did not mention painting John Brown in the Charlestown jail as he did in the 1901 article.  Instead he spoke of working from a photograph:

“That painting seems to have carried a strange fatality with it. After I had begun the work, drawing from a photograph, Brown was executed in Charleston. . . .His brother came on here and sat for me for a whole week until I completed the color of the complexion.  The two  brothers looked much alike and the coloring in the faces of both seemed to be identical. Before the painting was completed this brother lost his property and became a bankrupt.”

Although Greene noted that later some of John Brown’s family members were interested in buying the finished painting, for various reasons none of them were able to and Greene still owned it in 1904. Today the location of the John Brown painting by Jeremiah M. Greene is unknown.

Tentative Identification of photograph used for 

painting Greene’s John Brown Portrait

Comparing a copy of the J.M. Greene 1859 painting of John Brown with copies of the extant known photographs of John Brown, it is my opinion that the photograph that Greene drew from was the beardless 1857 [?] photograph that is reproduced in the Life and Letters of Captain John Brown by Richard Davis Webb (1861). [see Wikipedia Commons image below]. While there are areas of the painting where Greene has taken artistic liberties, the nearly identical gap/opening in the vest and the nearly identical collar in both the painting and the 1857 "Albany" image as also pictured in John Brown Photo Chronology by Jean Libby, gives me confidence that Greene painted from the ca. 1857 photograph.   One question remains. Did J.M. Greene take the original photograph of John Brown?

                                                                                                                          

                                                                                                –Judith Sweets © 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sources:

"He Painted the Picture of John Brown, The Hero,"  Cleveland Leader, Cleveland, Ohio,  March 24, 1901 

"Painted a Picture of John Brown," Cleveland Leader, Cleveland, Ohio,  July 17, 1904, p. 36

Jean Libby, John Brown Photo Chronology: Catalog of the Exhibition at Harpers Ferry 2009, Palo Alto, Ca, Allies for Freedom Press, (2009), p.42

John Brown, Wikipedia Commons [from Life and Letters of Captain John Brown by Richard Davis Webb (1861)].

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