%20Waypt%201.jpg)
John Nicholas Brown II
(1900-1979)
John Nicholas Brown II was a descendant of Providence’s illustrious Brown family, many of whom are buried in the North Burial Ground. He was born in 1900 and his father died only a few months after his birth—leaving him, as he was called in the press, “the richest baby in America.” He had a passion for art and art history and dedicated his life to the study, collection, and preservation of art and architecture.
​
After receiving his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1922, he returned there a few years later to pursue graduate study in historic architecture, Christian iconography, and the history of painting. He received his master’s degree in 1928, and began his own art collection.
​
Towards the end of World War II, he was named to the U.S. Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Commission and became an advisor to General Lucius B. Clay. He helped to formulate U.S. policy for the protection and preservation of European art, and worked on plans for the restitution of objects looted by the Nazis.
​
One of his major accomplishments in that role was the successful effort to return Jan van Eyck’s 1432 masterpiece The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (aka The Ghent Altarpiece) to its original home in Ghent, Belgium. (The altarpiece was discovered hidden in the Aultaussee salt mines in Austria; its rescue became the centerpiece of the 2014 movie The Monuments Men.)
​
His primary area of interest when he returned to Providence in 1949 was in the efforts of what became the Providence Preservation Society to preserve the historic architecture of Providence.
​
Catherine Beyer Hurst, MBA, Writer and Community Historian
Gallery
Nehemiah Dodge (1774-1856)
Jewelry and silver design have been an important part of the Rhode Island arts scene for hundreds of years. Most are familiar with Cranston-based Alex and Ani, and many of us are also knowledgeable about the big 20th century brands in Rhode Island—Gorham, Coro, and Speidel among them.
But to fully tell the story of jewelry design and manufacture in Providence, we need to go back to 1784 when Seril Dodge, and his much younger nephew or half-brother Nehemiah Dodge moved from Connecticut to Providence. The Dodges are credited with developing the process of depositing a thin layer of gold or silver on copper or other base metals. Only the well-to-do could afford jewelry made of pure silver and gold, but the Dodges were able to design and make jewelry that could be sold to a wider audience.
%20Landscape%20%20W.jpg)
Seril built two houses on Thomas Street in Providence in the late 1780s and early 1790s; both are still standing and now part of the Providence Art Club. He returned to Connecticut in 1796, but Nehemiah stayed on in Providence. He opened a shop on Main Street, and he advertised his business in 1798 as selling "gold necklaces, knobs and twists, gold rings, miniature cases, and fine jewelry."
Nehemiah lived at 65 Benefit Street, a few blocks from his shop. (The house is no longer there; a different house was moved to that location some years ago.) Across the street, at 56 Benefit, lived the Gorham family.
John Nicholas Brown II (1900-1979)
John Nicholas Brown II was a descendant of Providence’s illustrious Brown family, many of whom are buried in the North Burial Ground. He was born in 1900 and his father died only a few months after his birth—leaving him, as he was called in the press, “the richest baby in America.”
Although he was extremely wealthy through inheritance, he had a passion for art and art history and dedicated his life to the study, collection, and preservation of art and architecture.
His life is thoroughly documented elsewhere (see below), so this brief biography focuses on the accomplishments that earned him a place in our “Creative Rhode Island” tour.
After receiving his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1922, he returned there a few years later to pursue graduate study in historic architecture, Christian iconography, and the history of painting. He received his master’s degree in 1928, and began his own art collection under the guidance of Paul Sachs, Associate Director of Harvard’s Fogg Museum of Art.
During his graduate study he helped to found the Medieval Academy of America and its academic journal Spectrum.
He had intended to pursue a Ph.D. in art history, but the economic conditions engendered by the Great Depression caused him to abandon that plan in order to concentrate on his family’s business affairs.
In 1930, he married Anne Seddon Kinsolving, whose “Creative Rhode Island” biography appears elsewhere on this site.
Towards the end of World War II, he was named to the U.S. Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Commission and became an advisor to General Lucius B. Clay. He helped to formulate U.S. policy for the protection and preservation of European art, and worked on plans for the restitution of objects looted by the Nazis.
One of his major accomplishments in that role was the successful effort to return Jan van Eyck’s 1432 masterpiece The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (aka The Ghent Altarpiece) to its original home in Ghent, Belgium. (The altarpiece was discovered hidden in the Aultaussee salt mines in Austria; its rescue became the centerpiece of the 2014 movie The Monuments Men.)
For his efforts during this period, Brown was named an Officer of the French Legion of Honor, and a Commander of the Belgian Order of Leopold.
After the war, and a three-year stint as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, John Nicholas Brown continued his efforts as a collector, protector, and preserver of art. He personally funded many aspects of Kenneth Conant’s excavations at the Romanesque Abbey of Cluny in France, and he supported a project to uncover mosaics at the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
However, his primary area of interest when he returned to Providence in 1949 was in the efforts of what became the Providence Preservation Society to preserve the historic architecture of Providence. He had a lifelong interest in historic preservation, and was involved in the preservation/rehabilitation of the Old Brick Market house in Newport, the Arcade in Providence, and Slater Mill in Pawtucket.
John Nicholas Brown II’s home in Providence, built at the corner of Benefit and Power Streets in 1792, was donated to Brown University by his children after his wife Anne’s death in 1985. Thus John Nicholas Brown’s involvement with the preservation of art and architecture lives on in new generations of students. Graduates of the Master’s Degree program housed at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage have found work in museums, cultural planning agencies, heritage tourism, historic preservation, and community arts programs.
​
Catherine Beyer Hurst, MBA, Writer and Community Historian
Further Reading
​
Martha Mitchell’s Encyclopedia Brunoniana contains a write-up on the entire Brown family, discussing John Nicholas Brown II’s life, as well as that of his ancestors.
https://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Databases/Encyclopedia/search.php?serial=B0410
​
J. N. Brown II’s papers are housed at Brown University’s John Hay Library; this link details the contents of these papers.
https://library.brown.edu/collatoz/info.php?id=309
J. N. Brown II’s involvement as a “Monuments Man” is documented in this write-up from the Monuments Men Foundation.
https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men/brown-lt.-col.-john-nicholas-ii
His obituary in the Washington Post is a valuable source of information.
​
%20Waypt%201.jpg)
