James Edward Freeman was an American painter, diplomat, and author. He studied at the National Academy of Design

National Academy of Design

The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...

 in New York City and in Rome, Italy. He expatriated to Rome in 1841 when he was appointed U.S. Consul to Ancona, in the Papal States.

Early life and career in America

Freeman was born on Indian Island, in New Brunswick, Canada, less than one mile distant from Eastport, Maine, where his parents lived. His father, Joshua Edwards Freeman, was a merchant and navigated the waters between the bustling seaports frequently with his wife Eliza Morgan Freeman. In 1816 Freeman was sent to live with relatives in rural Otsego County, New York, but little else is known of his early life or his family circumstances.

In 1826 Freeman moved to New York City in order to study painting. There he encountered William Dunlap

William Dunlap

William Dunlap was a pioneer of the American theater. He was a producer, playwright, and actor, as well as a historian. He managed two of New York's earliest and most prominent theaters, the John Street Theatre and the Park Theatre...

, a noted portraitist and history painter, whose works the young Freeman could have seen in upstate New York. Dunlap encouraged Freeman to enroll in the National Academy of Design in New York City, a nascent institution of which Dunlap was a founding member. Freeman joined the National Academy of Design's Antique School in its inaugural year, 1826, alongside two other notable American painters, William Sidney Mount

William Sidney Mount

William Sidney Mount was an American genre painter and contemporary of the Hudson River School.-Biography:...

 and William Page

William Page

William Page was an American painter and portrait artist.-Life and work:...

. Freeman debuted at the National Academy of Design's Fourth Annual Exhibition in 1829 with Portrait of a Gentleman (unlocated). He was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design on May 14, 1831 and elected to the prestigious position of Academician on May 1, 1833.

By 1831 Freeman began to paint fancy pictures

Fancy pictures

Fancies was a term coined in 1737 by the art critic and historian George Vertue to describe genre scenes that also incorporated invented or imagined elements, or a storyline. He invented in to describe the paintings of Philip Mercier, such as Venetian Girl at a Window or the series The Five Senses...

, typically life-sized, single-figure (occasionally multi-figure) paintings which were similar in appearance to portraits but possessed a greater expressiveness and which frequently depicted hired models rather than paying sitters. Many of Freeman’s associates, including Samuel F. B. Morse

Samuel F. B. Morse

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American contributor to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs, co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter.-Birth and education:...

, Charles Cromwell Ingham, Henry Inman

Henry Inman

Henry Inman was an American portrait, genre, and landscape painter.-Biography:He was born at Utica, N. Y., and was for seven years an apprentice pupil of John Wesley Jarvis in New York City. He was the first vice president of the National Academy of Design. He excelled in portrait painting, but...

, Mount, and Page, were also painting fancy pictures, as was Washington Allston

Washington Allston

Washington Allston was an American painter and poet, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting...

, who began painting them in the first decade of the century. Freeman would also have been familiar with 18th-century European fancy pictures by Joshua Reynolds

Joshua Reynolds

Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...

, Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Jean-Baptiste Greuze was a French painter.-Early life:He was born at Tournus, Saône-et-Loire. He is generally said to have formed his own talent; this is, however, true only in the most limited sense, for at an early age his inclinations, though thwarted by his father, were encouraged by a...

, and Thomas Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...

, as well as the 17th-century secular works by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Bartolomé Estéban Murillo

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...

 that inspired the genre. Like many aspiring American painters of the era, however, Freeman continued to rely upon bespoke portraiture for his livelihood and became semi-itinerant in the 1830s, seeking and fulfilling commissions in Cooperstown, New York, Litchfield, Connecticut, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Utica, New York, from his home base in New York City and, later, Albany, New York.

Financed by his enlightened patron base in Albany, led by John Adams Dix

John Adams Dix

John Adams Dix was an American politician from New York. He served as Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. Senator, and the 24th Governor of New York. He was also a Union major general during the Civil War.-Early life and career:...

, Freeman embarked for England in September 1836. He carried letters of introduction from Morse to the esteemed Anglo-American painter Charles Robert Leslie

Charles Robert Leslie

]Charles Robert Leslie , was an English genre painter. Born in London, his parents were American, and when he was five years of age he returned with them to their native country. They settled in Philadelphia, where their son was educated and afterwards apprenticed to a bookseller...

 in London and the eminent Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish-Icelandic sculptor of international fame, who spent most of his life in Italy . Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a Danish/Icelandic family of humble means, and was accepted to the Royal Academy of Arts when he was eleven years old...

 in Rome. Traveling through England, thence to Paris, Marseilles, and the Italian port of Leghorn, Freeman arrived in Rome on November 30, 1836, and took quarters at Via Laurina 97. There were only two other American artists concurrently residing at Rome, the neoclassical sculptor Thomas Crawford

Thomas Crawford

Thomas Gibson Crawford was an American sculptor.He was born in New York City of Irish parentage, the son of Aaron and Mary Crawford. In his early years, he was at school with Page, the artist. His proficiency in his studies was hindered by the exuberance of his fancy, which took form in drawings...

 and the painter Frederick William Philip. Freeman and Crawford were allowed to attend the life school of the so-called English Academy, which convened nightly to work from nude models in the deconsecrated church of San Giovanni della Ficozza at Via dei Maroniti 29. Their British peers there included Morris Moore, Patrick Allan-Fraser, Edward Matthew Ward

Edward Matthew Ward

Edward Matthew Ward was an English Victorian narrative painter best known for his murals in the Palace of Westminster depicting episodes in British history from the English Civil War to the Glorious Revolution.-Early career:...

, and the brothers Robert Scott Lauder

Robert Scott Lauder

Robert Scott Lauder was a Scottish mid-Victorian artist who described himself as a "historical painter". He was one of the original members of the Royal Scottish Academy.-Life and work:...

 and James Eckford Lauder

James Eckford Lauder

James Eckford Lauder was a notable mid-Victorian Scottish artist, famous for both portraits and historical pictures....

.

During his brief nine-month sojourn in Rome Freeman painted Masaniello (private collection), a fancy picture of the Italian folk hero Tommaso Aniello, known as Masaniello

Masaniello

Masaniello was a Neapolitan fisherman, who became leader of the revolt against Spanish Habsburg rule in Naples in 1647.-Name and place of birth:...

, who led a successful uprising against Spanish rule of Naples in 1647 and became a potent symbol of Italian unification. Freeman's choice of subject matter reveals his own early support for the cause of the Italian Risorgimento.Freeman departed Rome in September 1837 and is recorded back in Albany, New York that December.

Consulship and political activities

Freeman's return to the United States proved disappointing, as he received neither the financial support nor critical approbation that he had anticipated. Assisted by his Albany political connections, namely Dix, Horatio Seymour

Horatio Seymour

Horatio Seymour was an American politician. He was the 18th Governor of New York from 1853 to 1854 and from 1863 to 1864. He was the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States in the presidential election of 1868, but lost the election to Republican and former Union General of...

, Thurlow Weed

Thurlow Weed

Thurlow Weed was a New York newspaper publisher, politician, and party boss. He was the principal political advisor to the prominent New York politician William H...

, and William H. Seward

William H. Seward

William Henry Seward, Sr. was the 12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson...

, he lobbied the administration of Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....

 for a consulship to enable him to settle permanently in Italy. In April 1840 he was officially named the first U.S. Consul to Ancona

Ancona

Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region, in central Italy, with a population of 101,909 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region....

, part of the Papal States

Papal States

The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...

. He sailed from New York City in January 1841, received his exequatur in Rome that spring, and visited Ancona that July. His position was essentially a sinecure, however, and Freeman soon designated a local man to serve as his vice-consul and returned to Rome to pursue his art. He never went to Ancona again.

On May 14, 1848 Freeman married Horatia Augusta Latilla, an Anglo-Italian sculptor in Florence. They made their home together at Via Capo le Case 68 in Rome, which also contained their studios. Domestic bliss and artistic pursuits were marginalized shortly thereafter, however, as a series of revolts spread throughout the peninsula in the wake of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

. Rome became embroiled after the assassination of Pope Pius IX

Pope Pius IX

Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...

's prime minister, Pellegrino Rossi

Pellegrino Rossi

Pellegrino Rossi was an Italian economist, politician and jurist. He was an important figure of the July Monarchy in France, and the Minister of Justice in the government of the Papal States, under Pope Pius IX.-Biography:...

, on November 15, 1848. Soon thereafter the pope fled Rome and the Roman Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

 was established in February 1849, the volatile situation proved overwhelming to the U.S. Consul to Rome, Nicholas Brown

Nicholas Brown

Nicholas Brown may refer to:*Nicholas Brown I , American signer of the 1764 charter of what became Brown University*Nicholas Brown II , Brown University was renamed for him in 1804*Nicholas Brown III , American Consul to Italy...

, and he enlisted Freeman's assistance, since he still held the title of U.S. Consul to Ancona.

When French troops bombarded Rome in June 1849 in order to restore the pope's temporal authority over the city, most foreigners fled the violence and turmoil, but Freeman remained. His firsthand chronicle of the siege was published in the New York Evening Post that August. Within days after the French breached the city walls on June 30, 1849 and occupied Rome, Consul Brown claimed to be ill and hastily departed his post, appointing Freeman acting consul in his absence. Freeman embraced the opportunity to assist those who had fomented and abetted the revolution. He personally erected the American flag on Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller

Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, commonly known as Margaret Fuller, was an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first full-time American female book reviewer in journalism...

's balcony on Piazza Barberini, after her pro-Italian, anti-French dispatches to the New York Tribune

New York Tribune

The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...

placed her in danger. He hid the apostate Italian priest Alessandro Gavazzi

Alessandro Gavazzi

Alessandro Gavazzi was an Italian preacher and patriot. He at first became a monk , and attached himself to the Barnabites at Naples, where he afterwards acted as professor of rhetoric.-Biography:...

 in his home for three nights and helped him escape to England. Most significantly, Freeman contrived a sort of improvised passport for thousands of Italians who faced certain death if captured by the French or Austrians, ensuring their safe passage out of Italy and, ostensibly, to America. All of this he apparently did out of personal conviction and with the expectation that his diplomatic post would immunize him from prosecution; however, his consulship to Ancona was suddenly revoked and given to the sculptor Joseph Mozier

Joseph Mozier

Joseph Mozier was an American sculptor active in Italy.Mozier was born in Burlington, Vermont. In 1831 he moved to New York City where worked as a merchant. He retired from business about 1845, and shortly afterward went to Europe, studying sculpture for several years in Florence, after which he...

 and a new consul replaced Brown at Rome. Fortunately, the American Chargé d'Affaires Lewis Cass Jr. attached Freeman to his legation, thereby guaranteeing he could stay on at Rome as an artist after the pope was reinstalled.

Artistic career in Italy

For more than forty years, Freeman remained a prominent fixture of the vibrant art scene in Rome, painting fancy pictures of humble Italian contadini, impish street urchins, Madonna-like rustic beauties, and blind mendicants for an international clientele. These sentimental character studies were appealing for their artless beauty, an ideal closely allied to the 18th-century cult of sensibility, which advocated that strong emotional responses to visual and literary stimuli could help foster compassion and ethical behavior. Freeman’s dedication to the communicative potential of the fancy picture resulted in a remarkably cohesive oeuvre that constitutes his lasting legacy to American art. In many of his works Freeman expressed his ardent support for nationhood and religious freedom in Italy, as well as abolition and tolerance in the United States. In his painting The Savoyard Boy in London (1865, Smithsonian American Art Museum) Freeman makes parallels between Italy’s internal struggle for unification with the American Civil War.

Artistically, Freeman reached the pinnacle of his career by mid-century. American tourists, however, were slow to return to Rome after the political tumult that defined the late 1840s, so he began to cultivate a new base of European⎯primarily English⎯clients, who already recognized and esteemed the idiom of the fancy picture in which he specialized. Freeman's fortunes continued to decline in the 1860s as aesthetic tastes changed and his physical abilities⎯his eyesight most notably⎯declined with age. He increasingly devoted his energies to literary pursuits, beginning with Photographs from Recent Pictures by J. E. Freeman, N.A. (1870), in which he coupled photographs after his paintings with prose and poetry, and culminating with two volumes of memoirs.

Memoirs

In 1877 Freeman published the first volume of his memoirs, entitled Gatherings from an Artist’s Portfolio, followed in 1883 with Gatherings from an Artist’s Portfolio in Rome. As their titles suggest, the collection of anecdotes and stories that fill the two volumes of Gatherings is similar to the miscellaneous scenes that fill an artist’s sketchbooks. Freeman alternated chapters on some of the eminent people he knew in Rome, such as John Gibson

John Gibson

John Gibson may refer to:*John Gibson , British architect*John Gibson , English cartographer and engraver*John Gibson , English cricketer...

, William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...

, Crawford, and the Italian Princess Borghese (née Guindalina Talbot) with others devoted to the contadini who populated his fancy pictures, such as Giovannina of Saracinesca, the young boy Angelo, and “La Nonna," who he called "my venerable model.” The memoirs proved popular with both the public and the critics, and they were likened to Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...

’s The Marble Faun and Our Old Home, as well as to William Wetmore Story

William Wetmore Story

William Wetmore Story was an American sculptor, art critic, poet and editor.-Biography:William Wetmore Story was the son of jurist Joseph Story and Sarah Waldo Story...

’s Roba di Roma. Today Freeman's Gatherings continue to be consulted by scholars for their unique insight and invaluable historical information about the international art scene at Rome in the 19th century.

For further reading

• Freeman, James E. Gatherings from an Artist’s Portfolio. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1877.
• Freeman, James E. Gatherings from an Artist’s Portfolio in Rome. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883.
• McGuigan Jr., John F. and Mary K. McGuigan. James E. Freeman, 1808–1884: An American Painter in Italy. Utica, NY: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, 2009.
• McGuigan, Mary K. and John F. McGuigan Jr. “Ragged Grace and Picturesque Naturalness: James E. Freeman and the Painting of Sentiment.” The Magazine ANTIQUES 176, no. 5 (November 2009): 88–93.
• Vance, William L. America's Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
• Vance, William L., Mary K. McGuigan, and John F. McGuigan Jr. America's Rome: Artists in the Eternal City, 1800–1900. Edited by Paul S. D'Ambrosio. Cooperstown, N.Y.: Fenimore Art Museum. 2009.