Portrait of Charles Brockden Brown

​​​​Charles Brockden Brown 
(1771-1810)

William Dunlap
Philadelphia, 1809
Oil on canvas
16” x 19”

An important early figure in American literature, Charles Brockden Brown was a Gothic storyteller whose influence extended to later American writers such as Hawthorne and Poe. Brown was the first American who earned a living solely by writing with stories, political essays and magazine articles.
 The portrait is painted by William Dunlap, one of Brown’s closest friends and another influential Philadelphia citizen. It was painted sometime shortly before Brown’s death in late 1809 or early 1810. A member of the Library Company of Philadelphia, this portrait is cited by the Company as the only known image of Brown.