Neptune's Needle

Portrait painter. The documentary evidence of Feke’s early life indicates that he was briefly a surveyor and then a mariner. No documentation of his voyages exists, but family tradition held that he was taken captive and held in Spain as a prisoner.

Feke's primary source of income seems to have been painting. His occupation listed on his daughters' marriage certificates remained "mariner," though Feke's biographer, Peter Mooz, conjectures that Feke never went to sea.

The quality of Feke's work was high, so high that it often overshadows his distinction as the first native-born American portraitist of quality. Later portrait painters, notably John Singleton Copley, John Hesselius, Gilbert Stuart, and Washington Allston, owe an artistic debt to Feke's work.

Sources

Images

Public Domain Source

External Additional Sources

Compiler

Peter Richards