# @newport.mansions on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CaM6N2OM55c
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/71767193-newportmansions-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/5a11a2417c.jpg
- **Posted:** 2022-02-20T14:01:21.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Newport Mansions (@newport.mansions) — https://gondola.cc/newport.mansions

## Caption

One of the highlights of our collection is this circa 1770 painting, “Dr. William Hunter’s Spaniels,” completed by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) when he was a teenager. Stuart would become one of America’s most famous portraitists; his Athenaeum portrait of President George Washington was the basis for the image that appears on the dollar bill.

Born in Saunderstown, R.I., Stuart moved to Newport as a young boy. Here he became acquainted with an enslaved cooper named Neptune Thurston, who drew chalk and charcoal faces on the hogshead barrels he built for cargo bound for the Caribbean. 

Stuart declared that “Neptune was my first master. The first idea I ever had of painting the human features, I received from seeing that old African draw a face.” Perhaps this influence on Stuart extends to the expressive faces of the dogs in this painting, which now resides in Hunter House, in the same Point neighborhood where Thurston eventually lived after gaining his freedom. 

#NewportMansions #HunterHouse #sundayread

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 198
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- **Comments:** 3

## Tags

sundayread, hunterhouse, newportmansions

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