Image: John Woolman

Description: PORTRAIT OF JOHN WOOLMAN The original sepia drawing on a large folio sheet from which this reproduction has been made is almost certainly the work of John Woolman's friend and contemporary, Robert Smith III, of Burlington, New Jersey, son of Daniel (d. 1781), and grandson and namesake of the well known Judge Robert Smith of the Court of Common Pleas, Burlington County (1769 &c). Robert Smith III married Mary, daughter of Job Bacon, of Bacon's Neck, N. J. He had a natural gift for seizing a likeness and has left a large collection of striking sketches. The technique is identical with this sketch, which, however, is more ambitious, and the erratic background is omitted. The medal of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Association, founded in 1787 by Thomas Clarkson, which appears in the original, goes to prove this a memory sketch, as are many of Robert Smith's portraits, and also furnishes corroborative evidence of its genuineness. The original was in possession of the late Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker, whose endorsement is on the reverse, and whose accurate judgment was seldom at fault. It was sold with the contents of his library in 1908 and came later into the hands of the present owner, George Vaux, Jr., of Bryn Mawr, Pa., to whom are due the editor's thanks for the privilege of reproduction.
Title: John Woolman
Credit: The Journal and Essays of John Woolman (1922), first few pages: https://archive.org/details/journalessaysofj00wool
Author: Probably Robert Smith III
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No