What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“A METZOTINTO … of that truly staunch Patriot, the Hon. SAMUEL ADAMS.”

On February 6, 1775, Charles Reak and Samuel Okey took to the pages of the Newport Mercury to advise “subscribers to the METZOTINTO print of the Rev. JAMES HONIMAN … that it will be ready to be delivered in a few days.”  As printers often did for books, Okey, a British printmaker who migrated to Rhode Island, gauged the market by seeking subscribers to his print of James Honyman, the former rector of Trinity Church in Newport, before executing it.  That allowed him to determine whether the project would be viable and how many prints to produce to meet the demand of subscribers who reserved copies.

The print has been dated November 2, 1774, based on a line beneath the title that reads, “Printed by Reak & Okey, Newport Rhode Island, Novr. 2 1774,” yet the newspaper advertisement suggests that even though the engraving may have ready on that day that Reak and Okey printed the portrait in the following months before distributing it in February 1775.  The advertisement gives further evidence that was the case.  The partners informed readers of a forthcoming print depicting “that truly staunch Patriot, the Hon, SAMUEL ADAMS, of Boston.”  Reak and Okey explained that they “have on copper, and in great forwardness” that mezzotint.  The engraving was complete, but printing took time.

When they did deliver copies of the Honyman mezzotint to subscribers, Reak and Okey offered more than just the print to “those gentlemen and ladies who should think proper to have them framed and glazed in the modern taste.”  They promoted “some elegant carved and gilt frames, made in this colony, on purpose for the print, equal to any imported from England.”  With the Continental Association in effect, Reak and Okey gave their customers access to frames without departing from that nonimportation agreement.  The copy in the collections of the Preservation Society of Newport County is “housed in a black painted wood frame with an interior gilt gesso border,” though the description does not give the provenance of the frame.

In their choices about their latest subject, John Adams, and the frames for the James Honyman mezzotint, Reak and Okey courted customers who supported the American cause as the imperial crisis intensified.  They joined other artists and publishers who commemorated the American Revolution even before the war began at Lexington and Concord, doing so with both an image of a “staunch Patriot” and frames imbued with political as well as artistic significance.