Portrait Miniature of a Man, possibly John F. Gould

A pensil inscription on the backboard of this picture reads, John F. Gould painted in watercolors by L. Cole painter of the four seasons, Newburyport about 1812.

Lyman Emerson Cole (1812- c.1878), a Newburyport painter, was born the same year this portrait was thought to be completed and so is unlikely as its author. Accordingly, it is possible that either another presently unknown L. Cole or Newburyport painted this portrait, or more likely, it was done by Lyman Cole's father, Moses D. Coles, who also worked as a portraitist in Newburyport after 1811.