Portrait of John Barnes

On October 27, 1775, Charles Willson Peale recorded in his diary, “Finished Mr. John Barnes portrait,” thereby documenting the portrait offered here. At the time, Peale was in Annapolis and this painting is included on a list of works the artist entrusted to his brother before he left for Philadelphia a few days later. John Barnes (1743-1800) was from a prominent Maryland family. His father, Col. Abraham Barnes, was a successful merchant whose Georgian mansion, Tudor Hall, now houses the St. Mary County Historical Society. A planter and merchant, John also served in the Maryland Assembly in 1777 and 1779. Due to his incurring large debts, his father cut him out of his will and left all his property to John’s younger brother, Richard (d. 1804). John never married and died while living on Richard’s estate, Montpelier, in Hagerstown, Maryland (Charles Coleman Sellers, Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale (Philadelphia, 1952), p. 27). This portrait was probably briefly the property of Richard until his own death four years later when his estate passed to his and John’s nephew John Thomson Mason (1765-1824), a renowned lawyer and Attorney General of Maryland. The portrait then passed to Mason’s son, Abraham Barnes Thomas Mason Barnes (1807-1863), who on the decree of Richard Barnes’ will had to adopt the Barnes surname after his father’s death in order to receive the Barnes inheritance. Peale's portrait has descended in the family until the present day.