Anonymous portrait of Francis Williams of Jamaica, oil on canvas. Possibly by an unknown British-Jamaican painter, ca.1740.

The oil painting is slightly smaller than an 18th-century standard ‘three-quarter size’ canvas (76.2 x 63.5 cm). The Jamaican landowner and scholar Francis Williams is shown full-length, standing at a small table in his study. His body is turned slightly to the right, his head to the left. Williams’ eyes are looking straight ahead, firmly holding the viewer’s gaze. With his right hand, William points to the bookshelves behind him while his left rests on an open volume inscribed 'Newton's Philosophy' atop the table. To the left, in front of a window, stands an wooden chair. On the right, a gathered blue curtain partially obscures the shelving. The floor is tiled in black and white.
Williams is dressed in high-quality navy-blue broadcloth coat and breeches. The woollen coat is faced in yellow and has gold metal buttons (probably gilded metal). Underneath, Williams wears a white silk satin waistcoat, with gold frogged fastening, or fastening à la hussar. Above his buckle shoes, his white, probably silk, stockings appear loose. Williams wears a bob wig, white linen neckcloth and very fine white linen cuffs, their translucency particularly well captured over his right wrist.
The accoutrements of Williams’ education and learning - a celestial and a territorial globe, dividers and other drawing instruments - are laid out on the table and floor. Bound books line the shelves behind him, including works by Newton, Locke, Milton, Cowley, Boyle, Sherlock and Rapin, and the architect Andrea Palladio. But while the painting clearly locates Williams within the tradition of European scholarship, it also - by virtue of the open window that reveals the tropical landscape of Spanish Town, the river bank and bright azure blue of the sky - sets him firmly within a Jamaican setting.

Gift of Viscount Bearsted M.C. and Spink and Son Ltd. through the National Art Collections Fund, 1928.

Gift of Viscount Bearsted M.C. and Spink and Son Ltd. through the National Art Collections Fund, 1928.

Prov: Major H. Howard of Hampton Lodge, Seale, Farnham, direct descendant of Edward Long, author of 'A History of Jamaica'; purchased by Spink and Son Ltd. for £250 nad given to the V&A in 1928 on the condition at Viscount Lord Bearsted paid Spink and Son Ltd. £150.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Date:
Little is known about this painting or the circumstances of its production. The date of about 1740, first suggested in a note in the departmental object file dated 1928, is based on the furniture depicted in the image; when first donated to the V&A, the painting was hung in the furniture galleries as an example of colonial interior design. When considering the painting in 2016, a Senior Curator in the V&A's Furniture, Textiles and Fashion department commented -
"Stylistically the furniture could not date from before the 1730s – the amount of carving and the form of the chair would not have been available even in London before that date. One might have expected a plain splat and frame in just plain wood. The London/Liverpool company of Gillows, were traders in timber, particularly Jamaican mahogany – but these do not look like Gillows pieces. The furniture might possibly be American – then a colony and geographically nearer than Britain. ...Furniture of this quality would most certainly have been prized and would have remained so for decades afterwards. The dating of c.1740 is therefore not definitive."
In 2023, the textile and dress historian Lesley Miller commented: “Suit and waistcoat would date this to 1740s because of cut (flare at sides), size of cuffs and length of waistcoat. The quality of the textiles is high, their texture and trimmings being painted to conjure up the kind of fine cloth, plain silk and ultra-fine linen that spoke of quality and expense. This was standard formal dress for men of the European nobilities and prosperous middling ranks; it is not court dress (no lace or elaborate patterned silks). Even if the garments were made up in Jamaica, these textiles were likely imported […] The portrait would have been painted before the rise in importance of cottons and decline in significance of woollens in Jamaica.”
The date of about 1740 is repeated by Vincent Carretta in his 2003 article ‘Who was Francis Williams?’, Early American Literature, Vol. 88:2 (2003), pp. 213-232. The dating is in keeping with Williams’ mature appearance and age at the time.

Artist:
Many writers have commented on the unusual proportions of the figure and objects in the painting. The distorted perspective of the chair and table indicate that this work is most likely to be by an untrained or amateur artist. William’s unbalanced physical proportions, with a large head and small hands and feet, may be due to the artist’s inexperience. Images of the painting taken using Infrared reflectography have revealed underdrawings, including projection lines on the checkerboard floor which were possibly drawn with a ruler. By continuing these lines, the vanishing point reveals itself to be Williams’ face. This may be an indication that the artist was relying heavily on drawings manuals but distorted the figure’s proportions in the process. Together with the careful intellectual construct of the painting, such as Williams’ cross referencing through his gestures to Newton’s work in the volume on the table and on the bookshelf, it is possible to argue that this is a self-portrait rather than a commission from a provincial artist.
Elsewhere, the portrait has been interpreted as a ‘satire’ of Williams – Carretta has suggested it may have been commissioned by a hostile party, mocking Williams’ supposed arrogance (Carretta, 2003).


Biography: Francis Williams (about 1690–1762)
Francis Williams is the first known black writer in the British Empire. Much of what is known about him is recorded in The History of Jamaica (1774), a racist publication by Edward Long (1734–1813). Long was a British colonial administrator in Jamaica and a vocal advocate of slavery, who owned plantations and lived there from 1757 to 1769. Francis Williams’ date of birth is not known, but when he died in 1762 he was reportedly ‘aged seventy or thereabouts’ (Long, History of Jamaica). Francis was the son of John and Dorothy Williams, who were both enslaved. John Williams was not emancipated until 1697: if Francis was born before this date, he was born into slavery.
Following emancipation, John Williams became a successful and wealthy merchant, buying land and slaves of his own. Francis had two elder brothers, John and Thomas, and a sister, Lucretia. As emancipated Black inhabitants of Jamaica the Williams family were free to live and work, but they were not automatically granted the same legal and civil rights as white Jamaicans. In February 1708 John Williams succeeded in having a special local act passed which granted him the right to trial by jury and prevented enslaved people from testifying against him. In 1716 John Williams successfully had this act extended to include Dorothy, and their sons John, Thomas and Francis. Their daughter, Lucretia, was not included. When John Williams died in 1723, his estate was valued at £16,319 Jamaica Currency (over £12,000 sterling). This included land, enslaved labourers and childres, and debts owed to Williams by prominent members of Jamaican society.

Francis Williams was educated at least partially in England and admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 8 August 1721. Edward Long reports that his education was an experiment sponsored by the Duke of Montagu, to see whether black people could be educated in the same manner as white people. However, this detail may have been fabricated to discredit Williams: his father’s wealth and ambition would most likely have made such sponsorship unnecessary, at least financially. Long also states that Williams attended the University of Cambridge, but no record of this has yet been identified. According to an anonymous editorial comment in the Supplement to the Gentleman's Magazine 1771, Williams was also admitted to Royal Society meetings, but this scientific organisation denied him full membership 'on account of his complexion'.
Williams returned to Jamaica after the death of his father in 1723 and took over the family estates. It appears that Williams spent the rest of his life in Jamaica; he ran a school in Spanish Town, teaching black students reading, writing, Latin and mathematics.
Williams became a well-known public figure in Jamaica and England, as a rare example of a black person granted the education usually reserved for white people. Williams wrote Latin poetry, including an ode to the new Governor of Jamaica, George Haldane, preserved in Long’s History of Jamaica. Long sought to discredit Williams through critique of this poem, but Long’s interpretation has been judged perhaps to be intentionally misleading (Lindo, 1970). John Gilmore has described the work as ‘a specimen of conventional flattery… good of its kind’ (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).
It would seem that Williams did not share his father’s flair for business, and instead lived on the family fortune, supplemented by a modest income from teaching. When Williams died in 1762 he was living in rented accommodation, and his property reduced to £694 and 19s Jamaica Currency (around £500 sterling).
Williams was ridiculed by racist white contemporaries such as Edward Long and David Hume, the latter describing him as ‘like a parrot who speaks a few words plainly’ (Hume, Of National Characters, 1748). He was also used as an argument in favour of the abolition of slavery by people such as Henri Grégoire and Robert Boucher Nickolls. Williams owned enslaved people, he was not an abolitionist. However, as a pioneering black writer, his very existence challenged the ideological basis of trans-Atlantic slavery which relied upon the myth that black people were inferior intellectually and socially to white people.

Object Type
In the 18th century portraits painted in oil were regarded as a sign of achievement and social status. Beyond representing the sitter’s likeness, the careful choice of setting and objects were used to express character and invisible ‘qualities’.

Subject
Francis Williams (about 1690 – 1762) was a free Black Jamaican landowner, writer and teacher. He was educated at least partially in England, where he also studied law and attended meetings of the Royal Society.
Williams’ portrait follows 18th-century European conventions in representing scholarly gentlemen. He is shown wearing a formal coat and breeches, standing in his elegant, book-lined study. A globe of the world has been placed on the floor, and a celestial globe on the table. Williams rests his hand on an open book and dividers and other drawing instruments lie next to it. All this, including the choice of authors in the library, conveys Williams’ interest and competence in astronomy, mathematics and geography as well as rhetoric, logic and grammar.
A landscape, possibly of Spanish Town by the Cobre River, is visible through the window. This locates Williams in Jamaica, after his return from England to take over responsibility for his family’s estates.
The painting’s finish and insecure handling of perspective, especially in the depiction of William’s legs and the table have raised questions regarding the training of the unknown artist responsible for this picture. It has been suggested that it could be a self-portrait. Like other so-called ‘amateurs’ of the period, Williams may have wanted to add painting to his gentlemanly accomplishments.

P.83&A-1928