22 Jan Mary Winthrop Wanton

Mary Winthrop Wanton, c. 1740. Robert Feke (1707-1752). Oil on Canvas. Gift of Angelica Gilbert Gardiner.

Mary Winthrop Wanton was the wife of Joseph Wanton, Rhode Island’s last colonial governor. The fashionable decolletage of her gown is cut so low that the scandalized Redwood directors a century later asked artist Jane Stuart (Gilbert Stuart’s daughter) to paint in a modest nosegay of flowers.

Robert Feke was one of the earilest native Colonial painters, he was probably born in Oyster Bay, Long Island. His portraits include prominent members of families in Boston and Philadelphia, as well as Newport, where he lived with his wife, Eleanor Cozzens.