Portrait of Reverend Barclay

In his 1936 Diary the artist states he was painting a copy of a portrait of this man for Colonel Kilbreth, but he does not say anything about who painted the original picture nor anything further about this except it was finished on June 2. The following day he says, ‘At the home of General and Mrs. Kilbreth there was a grand reception to ‘unveil’ the new apartment and I saw where my copy will be placed in the dining room.’

However, the Barclays were historically prominent in New York and their history was written by R. Burnham Moffatt, The Barclays of New York: Who They Are and Who They Are Not, – and Some Other Barclays, New York, 1904, and the portrait he copied may be of a famous from this family, possibly Reverend Henry Barclay (1712–1764), an Anglican clergyman who served as rector of Trinity Church in New York City.