Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Feke, Robert

FEKE, Robert, artist, b. in Oyster Bay, L. I., about 1725; d. in Barbadoes, West Indies, aged about forty-four. He left home when young, was taken prisoner and carried to Spain, where he passed his time in making rude paintings. With the proceeds of these he returned home, settled at Newport, and became a portrait-painter. He was one of the earliest American artists, his first pictures bearing the date 1746. Many of his portraits are in the Bowdoin college collection, and in that of the Rhode Island historical society, Providence. One of the best is that of Lady Wanton, in the Redwood library, Newport.