Winter 2016

2016 Antiques & Fine Art 151 “Whereas Abraham Redwood, Esquire, hath generously engaged to bestow five hundred pounds sterling, to be laid out in a collection of useful books suitable for a Public Library proposed to be erected in Newport . . . and having nothing in view but the good of mankind.” —Annals of the Redwood Library, 1891 1729 with a small entourage of artists and scholars. The group only planned a short stay while awaiting funds to establish a college in Bermuda. The project never came to fruition, but Berkeley spent three productive years in Rhode Island, where he composed Alciphron , also known as The Minute Philosopher . A friend of such English literary luminaries as Joseph Addison and Alexander Pope, Berkeley added considerable prestige to Newport’s emerging intellectual life. He found fertile soil for his ideas, where freedom of thought and religious tolerance had created a cosmopolitan population from various countries and faiths, primarily Quakers, Baptists, Sephardic Jews, and Anglicans. In 1730, Berkeley joined with others to establish the Philosophical Society, devoted to “the propagation of knowledge and virtue through a free conversation.” 1 Although Berkeley returned to England in 1732, the Philosophical Society continued to thrive and evolved into the Company of the Redwood Library. In the 1740s, the gifts of two prominent merchants gave impetus to the creation of a building to properly house the activities of the Library Company. Henry Collins, renowned as the ”Lorenzo de Medici” of Rhode Island due to his artistic discrimination and magnanimity, donated his bowling green, while Abraham Redwood matched this gesture with a gift of five hundred pounds sterling for the “purchasing of a Library of arts and sciences, whereunto the curious and impatient inquirer, after resolution of doubts, and the bewildered ignorant, might freely repair for discovery and demonstration to the one, and true knowledge and satisfaction to the other.” 2 The original collection included theological writings and works by ancient authors such as Homer, Cicero, Euclid and Pliny. 3 Generous benefactors, fine books, and an enthusiastic circle of thinkers set the stage for the creation of a remarkable building. In 1747, the incorporators of the Redwood Library Company engaged Peter Harrison, who designed a structure worthy of their prized volumes and appealing to their classical tastes. Born in York, England, he and his brother, Joseph, served as sea captains and merchants. They settled in Newport in 1739 and quickly rose to commercial and social prominence. In 1746, Peter married the beautiful and wealthy Elizabeth Pelham, a member of one of Newport’s prominent mercantile families. Financial independence allowed him to indulge in architecture, at that time the province Fig. 2: William Kent (ca. 1685–1748), editor, The Designs of Inigo Jones , 2 (London, 1727). Plate of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, by Andrea Palladio. The Cynthia Carey Collection; Gift of Guy F. Cary. The Redwood Library and Athenaeum. Fig. 3: Edward Hoppus (d. 1739), Design of a classical building, Headpiece to Book IV, in Andrea Palladio’s four books delineated and revised (1735). The Redwood Library and Athenaeum, The Cynthia Cary Collection; Gift of Guy F. Cary. Peter Harrison closely followed this façade for his Redwood Library but dispensed with the use of ox skulls in the entablature.