Currently not on view
Samuel Finley (1715–1766), President (1761–66),
1870
after John Hesselius, 1728–1778; born Philadelphia, PA; died Prince George’s County, MD
Samuel Finley, one of the original trustees of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and its president from 1761 to 1766, was a theologian who was regarded as "a very accurate scholar, and a very great and good man." Lind painted this portrait after the official version that currently hangs in the Faculty Room of Nassau Hall alongside other portraits of the University’s founding figures. The contemporary artist Titus Kaphar, whose portrait of Finley is adjacent, draws on historical paintings such as this to examine the biases and omissions in representations of history. Previous biographical accounts, for example, do not mention the fact that Finley owned slaves, but his estate included several, some of whom lived and worked at Maclean House, the president’s campus residence.
Information
1870
- Donald D. Egbert, Princeton Portraits, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947)., fig. 222, pp 317-329
- Leigh E. Schmidt, "Finley, Samuel", American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
- Karl Kusserow et al., Inner sanctum: memory and meaning in Princeton’s Faculty Room at Nassau Hall, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2010)., p. 60, fig. 12 (illus.)
- Johnathan M. Yeager, ed., Early evangelicalism: a reader, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)., fig. 9.1; p. 61
