Elizabeth freake

Reading American Art

Edited by Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy

Craven, Wayne. "The Seventeeth-Century New England Mercantile Image: Social Content and Style in the Freake Portraits." In Reading American Art, edited by Marianna Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy, 1-11. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

1 The Seventeenth-Century New England Mercantile Image: Social Content and Style in the Freake Portraits

Painting in colonial New England began in the 1660s, some thirty to forty years after the earliest settlements were established there. In the English tradition, portraiture was virtually the exclusive theme. The subjects were merchants, ministers, and civil officials, along with their ,vives and children. Boston was the center of activity for the region, and evidence now suggests that tbe town pos- sessed, at one time or another, several men capable of taking likenesses after about 1664. They have been called "limners," but the term does Jl.ot mean un- trained "primitives." Rather, they were trained artists, working in an established tradition. Patronage of their talents evolved slowly at first; for portrait painting to exist as a profession there had to be sufficient wealth and patrona~e to employ the practitioner regularly at his craft. In New England-indeed, in any North American colony-that situation did not exist until the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Although the middle class had patronized a"l'tists in En- gland, the early colonists had no money for such a luxury. Econ<Jmic contin- gencies, not a distaste for art, prevented the rise of painting in the New World during the first decades of settlement.

The early likenesses were executed by someone who had probably come to the Bay Colony fully prepared to make his living in some way other than paint- ing portraits, even if he had been trained in that art in England. 1111 Massachu- setts he would have turned to painting of a utilitarian nature-signs, furniture, houses, and so forth. When the need arose, he would put his former training to use, but by and large the opportunity to do so was infrequent. The early por- traitists wen~ familiar with the stvle of the art of their homeland. Thev were. in

Figure 1.1 Th(' Fn'akc' LiullH'r.j"!1I1 Fr('ak,', c. IG74. Oil ou canvas, 42Y, X :36Y, iuchc·s. \I'orcc'sl('r Art MIISI'IIIIl, ,Vorcc'sll'r, Mass" Sara!1 C. Carv('r I'uud.

Figll1'c 1.2 Till' I'rcak(' LiUlIll'l', l:ka!wt!1 Fr('ake alii! HI/Ii!! ,\far!!, c. 1674. Oil on can\'as, ,12Y, X ,'3(iY, illcllcs. '\.'orc('skr ;\1'1 MlISC'11111,Worc('skr, Mass., girt of Mr. aud Mrs. ;\Iberl \\' Hice.

fad, gifted artists, aesthetically sensitive to such formal aspects of art as line, color, Jesign, anJ pattern, By no means were the early New England portraits the work of amateurish hacks.

We now have a list of about rorty portraits believeJ to have been executed in or around Boston before 1700,' Of these, many woulJ agree that the two mas- tel1)ieces are the John Freake and the Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary of about 1674 (figs. 1.1, 1.2). These portraits offer an excellent case study for the type of image that emerged amid a community that was fast becoming dominated by the mercantile spirit.2

John Freake (1635-7.5) was born in England but by 1658 ha<l immigrated to Boston, where he became a merchant, lawyer, anu a man of property anu means. He owned two houses as well as a brewhouse, a mill, some land at Fort lIill, anu a partial interest in at least six ships. An inventory of his estate valued his property at well over two thousand pounds, a large sum by the standards or the dayJ In 1661 he married Elizabeth Clarke (1642-1713), daughter of Thomas Clarke, also a merchant of Boston, and the Freakes were very much a part of the mercantile establishment when they had their portraits painted.

The Freake portraits may have been painted as early as J671, at which time no child was present in the pidure of Mrs. Freake.4 The inf~1l1twas added and several changes made in the figure of the mother in 1674; little Mary was born on May 6 of that year, and an inscription in the lower left reads "Aetatis Snae 6 moth," in reference to the child's age.

These are family portraits-that is, f~llnilial icons-and this provided ample utilitarian and societal value for their existence. They were intended to cele- brate marital domesticity and family lineage as well as social position. Family life was sacred, and colonial American portraits, particularly in pendant portraits of man and wife, of parents with children, or of children alone, were hymns to that divinely blessed institution.5 The sensual yet spiritual relationship of man and wiIC is evident in Anne Bradstreet's poem "To My Dear and Loving Husband,"' written in 1671:>,only a few years after the Freake portraits were painted:

] f ever two were one, then surely we. If"ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me the woman if you can. I prize thy love mom than whole mines of gold, Of all the riches that the east doth hold.

as Frcake and Sllrimpton, althongll pions in their own way, represented the headstrong will of the mercantile sector to break the hold of the theocratic power base in order to redirect the cOlJrsc of increasing prosperity. They sided with other ascending merchants to form a social elite within the colony. That early mercantile elite, by 1670, was contributing to the collapse of the old Puri- tan regime. Thus Freake's portrait is thoroughly secular and should not be seen as expressing the spiritualistic Puritanism of the founding hlthers.

John Freake's portrait is a three-yuarter-Iength, largely frontal view, with the head turned slightly to our right. The subject, who looks at ns directly, is a hand- some young man ,vith pleasant features; he wears a neatly trimmed little mus- tache, but his chin is clean-shaven. There is a suggestion of a smile, and the countenance expresses self-confidence and self-consciousness in about equal measure.

No feature should be overlooked or considered inconsequential in studying the iconography of a portrait. Freake's hair, for example, tells us certain things about the man. First of all, it is his own-not a wig-and second, it is shoulder- length; it contains a social statement that was compatible with this merchant's brand of religion. Freake chose not to wear the great lovelocks of Cavalier soci- ety, which William Perkins had criticized as a symbol of frivolous extravagance and a "foreign trick," and which William Prynne had called "a vile abuse ... an incitation to lust ... and Sodomy."fi Freake's fellow townsman John Hull, the sil- versmith, condemned the wearing of long hair as a sin on a level with gambling, drinking, and idleness, while William Woods was fined by the General Court in 1676 for "wearing his haire long as a womens haire."7

But if Freake wished to avoid association with lovelock society, neither did he want to be shown as a Houndhead, which would have connoted a commitment to Puritanism. Short hair had been the emblem of the Puritan in anti-Puritan plays at the court of Charles I, and courtiers h~d joked that one :should never trust a man if one could see his ears. Moreover, short-cropped hair was imposed on men of the lower class as a badge of their inferior social stan<.ling. For ex- ample, in 1675 the Massachusetts General Court told John Gatchell, convicted of bnilding 011 public land, that his fine would be reduced by half if he would "cut off the long hair off his head into a civil frame"8-that is, cut it to the length proper for a man or his low station.

What all of this means in connection with the portrait of John Freake is that, by the length and style of his hair, the subject did not want to imply that he was of the rakish Cavalier set with its low morals; nor did he want to ma.ke a declara- lion, lhrough a Roundhead cut, of a strong commitment to PuritaiJ1ism; and he certainly did not want to be associated with the lower class, identifi-ed in part by short-cropped hair and associated with idleness and poverty, both oJwhich were

The Freake portraits were odes to powerrul values that found approval in scrip- ture, in Calvin~5 writings, and in Protestant sermons of England and New England.

The Freake and related portraits also express another idea that had Calvinist support-the doctrine of prosperity, or God's blessing, for diligence at one's calling, which was manifested in material rewards. Such portraits raise a number of issues about afTIuence, pride, and the continual upward pressme on the limits between moderation and ostentation.

Freake had prospered as a merchant, atlorney, and shipowner, and he may be seen as an archetypal counterloil to the old-guard establishment of the ministers antI the Massachusetts General Court, which still schemed, in the 1670s, to pet- rily life according to the will of the colony's rounding fathers. For example, when the commissioners of King Charles II were in Boston in 1666, Freake petitioned that their authority be accepted, thereby indicating his preference for crown rule in place of the oligarchy that the ministers and religious zealots were anx- ious to maintain. Furthermore, this up-and-coming young merchant was at times in partnership with the wealthy, vain, and hedonistic Samnel Shrimpton. A rebel against the authority of the old-guard theocrats, Shrimpton asserted his right to strive for personal fortune in opposition to those who mRintained that a collective spiritual well-being should be the colony's highest prioril y. Men such

sins. Instead, he is shown with the meuium-Iong, shouluer-Iength hair of a gentleman-which within his community meant that he held an honored posi- tion at the peak of the social and economic pyramid.

John Freake's attire bears further testimony to his prosperity anu therefore, in a mercantile community, to his rank among men. His costume is one of come- liness, which Calvin conuoneu, anu not austerity, which Calvin uismisseu as un- necessary; Freake and his kind, after all, lived by the code of Calvinist virtues. His coat is a rich brown, not the black so often associated with zealous Puritans; it has full, ample sleeves, it flairs gracefully from the waist, anu it is cut from a fine velvet fabric. The stylishness and neatness of its tailoring suggest sartorial refinement expressed in a moderate hlshion design; it is neither extravagant nor mean, and so places its wearer, appropriately, somewhere between Cavalier so- ciety and the indolent, indignant poor. The coat has a decorative row of silver buttons, of which at least twenty can be seen down the front, while more auorn the pocket flaps. The buttonholes are nicely embroidereu with silver thread. This is very similar to the coat and buttons in the English portrait of Sir John Clerk, Baronet (1675) by John Scougall, suggesting that Freake was imitating the fashions of the English peerage, when those fashions were of a moderate design.!!

John Freake, the prosperous gentleman-merchant, wears other items that bear witness to a moderate love of finery. His white shirt, made of fine muslin, has hlshionable pulTed sleeves with crenelated cuffs. In his right hand he holcls a pair of 10ng-cuHecl gloves, another designation of gentleman status. On the little finger of his left hancl he wears a large ring, which appears to be made of gold. The same hand londles an ornate silver brooch of superb clesign-the work of a very gifted silversmith-which reveals Freake's enjoyment of decora- tive baubles made of precious metals; it was probably an imported piece. The final ornamentation for the sake of "comeliness" is the beautiful lace collar; fine lace of that quality had to be importecl from the Continent, and it appears to be of "Spanish" deSign but of Venetian workmanship.1° The collar Freake wears is the antithesis of the simple white, squared collar associated with Puritan garb, and it again testifies to his separation hom any stringent dress code set up by that sect. This exquisite detail woulclmake it difficult to deny the subject's pride in personal appearance and his joy in the materialistic pleasures brought him by his God-blessed, Calvin-condoned prosperity.

In the companion portrait of Mrs. Freake and her inl~1I1tdaughter, Mary, those same characteristics bring several socio- and religio-economic problems into even dearer focus. Close inspection places in question a number of previ- onsly held assumptions about life in seventeenth-century New England.

Elizabeth Freake is a pleasant-looking young woman but plain of feature. A

Jew strancls of her blonu hair are visible on her foreheacl, but the rest of her hair is "bound up" beneath a white lace hood. A slight smile suggests a good nature, contentment, even self-satisfaction. About her neck hangs a triple strand 01 pearls, and her other jewelry includes a four-strand garnet bracelet on her left wrist and a gold ring on the thumb of the left hand. She wears .a dress of hea") moire or taffeta, which is a warm silver gray. It reveals a bright red-orange velvet underskirt richly adorned with gold guipure. Red-orange laces are seen at the bodice and large red and black bows decorate the sleeve, from which emerge~ the white puffed sleeve of a blouse with a crenelated lace ruffle. About hel shoulders is a narrow white collar, to which is appended a bro.ld band of vel') hanclsome lace.

Considering the several beautiful and fine fabrics, the numerous instance~ of colorful or intricate decorative details, and the three pieces of jewelry Mrs. Freake's costume could hardly be called austere, or even reserved. It is evi· dent from this portrait that fine fabric, fashion, and color were enjoyed amon~ prosperous Protestant folk, and Elizabeth Freake's attire refutes any notion tha all seventeenth-century New England women wore reserved and unadorne( black, white, and gray dresses out of dedication to austere Puritan principles.

Where did the I~lbrics worn by Mrs. Freake come from? Th.eir fineness sug gests that they were imported, for taHeta, brocade, and lace W re high-qualit) speCialty goods that were seldom attempted by colonial weavers by 1675.11 No only the English bbrics but bncy stufl's from the Continent ano the far reache of the Anglo-American trading system were imported, and in such quantities a to indicate considerable demand Jar them. Mrs. Freake's taffeta may well hav. come ii'om France; the lace, from Spain, Venice, or the Netherlands; the bro cade, from England; the pearls, from the Orient; and the garnets of the bracele1 li'om India. New England merchants of the 1670s had ready access to worldwicl markets, either directly or through trade with intermediaries, aJ1d both they an- their wives were willing to forgo the fancy stuffs that could brighten and refin their lifestyles. In spite of ministerial admonitions about too much worldlines: the merchants were not becoming ungodly, as long as they did not become 0: tentatious by their own-not the ministers' -standarus.

The pleasures of prosperity were too powerful {or either the pulpit or th bench to withstand. As the merchants and their wives pressed t:he limits of wb: was tolerated as being \vithin moderation, the ministers and the magistratl lelt compelled to restrain them. The sermons and laws aimed at stultifying th hedonistic urges that came with mercantile affluence reveal hat the pressul was very real. But it should be remembered that such senno 15 and laws wel directed only at placing limits upon, and seldom at outlawing otally, the enjo: ment of material things. The disputation was always over wlwre the line bl

tween moderation and ostentation was to be drawn, and much of Protestantism's sIH.;cessamong an upwardly mobile, prospering middle class was due to its lIexi- bility in setting that line. In esscnce, the clerS'Ylllan-magistrate group and the afRuent merchants were not in disagreement, for most merchants were them- selves offended by ostentation, which they saw as economically imprudent as well as morally sinful-and the ministers and magistrates certainly condoned the prosperity that came hom the pursuit of one's Christian calling.

The Puritan old guard had difRculty convincing many of the pcople that their indulgences were destroying God's little plantation in New England and that they would ultimately be carried off to hell because of them. The merchants and their wives knew their Calvinist theology. In Calvin's writings they read passages in which the Heformer said prosperity was God's reward for diligence at one's secular calling, while other sections declared that "comeliness" in attire was per- fectly acceptable. The inellectiveness of laws designed to restrict indulgences is demonstrated by a {ew lines from Governor John Winthrop's I-listo'ry of New England, in which he noted that although the General Court had ordered the church elders to urge their flocks to be less ostentatiousness in attire, little could be done, "for divers of the elders' wives, etc., were in some measure partners in this disorder.""12

In 1679, only a Jew years after the Freake portraits were paintcd, the Gen- eral Court again tried to legislate, on moral grounds, against excessive pride in apparel, declaring it to be a great evil Jc>rwhich God would visit transgressors with "loathsome diseases." That law, too, had little ellect among the merchant hlmilies.

Then, as now, it was difficult to legislate moral issues and enforce laws enec- tively. But even civil, economic laws were flouted when they stood between the afRuent upper middle class and its acquisition of the material goods it craved. Laws were enacted in England (and supposedly enforced in the English colo- nies as well) to protect the home industries in cloth and lace making. As early as 1622, Parliament passed a law prohibiting the importation of Continental laces,13 but as King Charles I was the worst oHender of all, most of his subjects Jelt no compunction about breaking the law. Laces were smuggled into England in loaves of bread, in Turkish turbans, and in coffins that were later dug up to retrieve the contraband,L4 The prohibited laces and (~lbrics were similarly smuggled into New England in prodigious amounts.

When John, Elizabeth, and even little Mary Freake are shown wearing a goodly amount of imported lace, it means that they were determined to create a lifestyle according to their own terms; the Parliament in England could not pre- vent them from obtaining the material stuffs they desired, any more thall their OWl)clergy could dictate to them the fasbion of their attire. Tbis further illdi-

cates that it was the merchant class with its indomitable spirit, rather than the clergy, that would ultimately establish the character of colonial life in New En- gland. The secularism of the merchant class, not the spiritualism of the minis- tcrs, {ormed the foundation for most colonial portraiture in the region. The stereotype of the seventeenth-century Puritan hoIds true only of old men and ministers. Already present in the Freake portraits are the socio-economic foun- dations of the materialism and afHuence underlying John Singleton Copley's and Charles Willson Peale's portraits of the mercantile class of a hundred years later.

From the perspective of the merchant class, piety and prosperity were com- pletely compatible, and the two were united through the doctrine of prosperity, which proclaimed the validity of one's secular calling, diligence at which God re- warded in a material way. The merchants saw themselves as living according to the Christian virtues that Calvin had defined and that were particularly suited to the middle class. If New England had not been founded as a haven Jo1'Puritan zealots, a confrontation between merchants and clergymen probably would not have arisen; the two worked in harmony, for example, in contemporary Holland. In North American colonies, ,""here Anglicanism prevailed, the confi'ontation was not as intense. But as the seventeenth century progressed in New England, an adversary relationship developed that was in reality an internal struggle for control of the coursc of life. The rancor of the ministers and magistrates in- creaSingly suggests a petrification of mores as thc old guard tried to retain the faith and morals of the fonnders of their colony. Many a lament was heard from the pulpit, well into the eightcenth century, that the religious zeal and piety that hadinflamcd the souls of the founding generation had been lost. Colonial mer- chants dutifully listened to such wailing and gnashing of teeth on Sunday morn- ing; but when they had their portraits painted, they wanted the artists to include symbols of the material goods and social position that their honest hard work had earned. Indecu, the prosperity shown in their portraits was a visible expres- sion of their piety.

The furniture in Mrs. Freake's portrait also set a precedent for much later coIonial portraiture. The table, chair, and curtain, in their OWllsubtle way, make a complementary reference to prosperity and materialism. Hereafter, we will frequently find the unobtrusive inclusion of a portion of a table 01- chair or of somc other well-craned object as a <lniet indication of the subject's a[fluence, so- cial position, and good taste. Such a motif, in the Elizabeth Freake portrait, is the forerunner of the beautiful table in Copley's colonial masterpiece, Ml~ and Mrs. Isaac 'Vinslow (1774). These symbols of prosperity and materiaIism are a very important part of the iconography of the colonial Americc-.n portrait, whether they be a silver inkstand, a porcelain bowl with fruit, a pewter teapot, or an exquisitely wrought card table. The chair in which Mrs. Freake sits is of the

Notes This essay was first published, in slightly c!irferent form, as a section uf chapter 4 of

Colonial American Portraiture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986). J. The pioneering work on seventeenth-century New England portraits is Louisa

Dresser, Seventeellth-Centun/ Painting in New Ellglalld (Worcester, Mass., 1935); since then she has published "Portraits in Boston, 1630-1720," JOllrnal of the Archives of American Art 6 (July-October 1966): 1-34; and "The Background of Colonial Portrai- ture: Some Pages from a European Notebook," Proceedings of the AlIIerican AntiqlUlr- ian Society 76 (April 1966): 19-58. See also Lillian B. Miller, "The Puritan Portrait: Its Function in Ole! and New England," in Seventeenth-Celltury New England (Boston, 1984),63: 153-84.

2. On these portraits, see Dresser, Seventeellth-Century Painting, 8J -83, and Jonathan Fairbanks et a!', New Ellgland Begins: The Seventeenth Century, 3 vots. (Boston, 1982),3:460-62. See also Susan Strickler, "Hecent Findings on the Freake Portraits," Worceste'- Art Museum JOltrlwl 5 (1981-82): 49-55.

3. Suffolk County Probate Hecords, Court of Probate, Boston, 5: 294. 4. For a reconstruction of the original image of Mrs. Freake and an analysis of X-ray

studies of the picture, see Dresser, Seventeenth-Century Painting, J65-67, ane! Fair- banks et a!', New England Begills, 3: 460-61 ane! fig. 6l.

5. See P. W Thomas, "Two Cultures? Court and Country Under Charles I," in The Origins of the English Civil War, ed. Conrad Hussell (New York, 1973), 189. See also

Levin L. Sdlllcking, Tlw 1'1Il"ilall I'illllily: ;\ Social SIIUIY.li-ollllhe Liter(//"/f SOlll"ces (New York, 1970), amt Ccrald Moran and Maris Vinovskis, "Thc I'lII"itan F',ulIily ami Hc- Iigion: A Critical Ikappraisal," \Vil/illlll 01/11 Mary QI{(/rll'rly. 1d S<'1"., :39 Cf.lIlilary 1982): 29-lj:3. Io'ora discussion ucarly contciliporary with tIle Fn'akc portraits, sc~e A.. Marsh, The Ten Pleasllres of Marriage (London, 1(82), repriuted with an introduction by John Ilarvey (London, 1972), witl, illuslralious of the twenty original plates; the plate oppo- site p. 188 shows a seated woman with a child on hcr lap, very similar in composition to the image of Mrs. Freake and her daughtcr. See also Carl Dcgler, Ollt of aliI' Pasl (New

York, 1970), 13. 6. For Perkins's fJuote, see;\ Godly and Learned Expositioll ofChrist:~ Sermon in the

MOl/lit (Calubridge, 16(8), 170; for PrYlluc's Cjuote, see William Prynne, liistrio-Masti.l". The Players Sco/u-ge, or, Act()/~~ Trag('(lie ... (London, J633), index, n.p., Llnder "IIaire."

7. John Hull, The Diodes of.l0hn l1ul/, in American Alltiqlwrian Socie/Ij 1hmsactiol/.~ alld Collectiolls 3 (Worcester, 1857): 2lJ. For the William Woods case, see Hobert St. George, '''Sct Thine House in Order': The Domestication of the Yeomanry in Seven- teenth-Century New England," in Fairhanks et a!', New Ellgland l3egil/.~, 2: 180.

8. Quoted in Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, Pu.rilall Oligarchy (New York, 1959),

174. 9. The portrait of Sir John Clerk is at Pcnicuick House and is reproducc,d iu Ellis

Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 1530 to 1790, 5th cd. (New lJaven, 1994»), pI. 102. 10. Frances Morris, Notes on Laces of Ihe Arnericall Colonists (New York 1926),7. 11. Bernard13ailyn, New England Merchants (Camhridge, Mass., 1979), 74. 12. Quoted in Degler, Ollt of Oil I' Pasl, 10. 13. 11uelson MoorE', Tire Lace Book (New York, 1904),23. J4. Esther Oldham, "Sheer Beauty: Early Lace Fans," Antiqlles 82 (Angust 1962): 163. 15. Suffolk County Probate Hccore!s, Court of Probate, Boston, 5: 294. See also the

Turkey-work couch of about 1698 now at the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass., illustrated in Jonathan Fairbanks and Elizabeth Bates, American Fllrnitllre, 162010 the Present (New York, W8J), 40. For an English couple of ahout the same date, see r",tirhanks et a1., New Englalld Begins, 3 :442 and 53.5, and pI. 31.

rinest, 1llost eoslly type thcn lound in colonial New England homes and is some-

times refCrred to as a Cromwellian chair. The colorful upholstery is of woven

wool, in inJitation of exotic f;t!Jrics from the Middle East; Turkey work, as it was

calbl, was produced in Eugland and exported to tll(.: colonies, where Ihe chair

itself was probably made. The inventory taken after John Freake's death indi-

cates that I(H1rteen such chairs were in the Freake household. 15 Such furniture

surely dispels the myth that seventeenth-century New England interiors were

purposefully drab. Objects such as the chair in Mrs, Freake's portrait are indeed emblems of

the success, relative affluence, amI social position of the lipper-middle-class

New England mercantile aristocracy. Together with the laces, taffetas, and vel-

vets, the silver buttons and the brooch, the pearls and garnets, and the hair

styles, they report to the viewer the things the Freakes wanted to be known

about themselves. The f~lCes, rendered in an uncomplicated, straightl()Jward

naturalism, preserve the likenesses of the sitters, and the hair, attire, and house-

hold objects expand upon the stories of their jives. In the style of the portraits

we find similarly interesting expressions of their taste, nationalistic feelings, and

afmiation with middle-class cultural traditions.

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