American or Continental School, c 1800-1803, 'Portrait of an Auburn- Haired Gentleman Wearing the Spanish Order of Santiago, and Holding an Issue of the Philadelphia Gazette', oil on canvas, 29in x 23.5 in., in a period gessoed and gilded cove frame E8000-12000 Note: The well- known and influential 'Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser', the early newspaper of record of the American Congress, was published under this name from June 18, 1800 to December 31, 1802, which are evidently the years within (or very soon after) which this impressive portrait was painted Because of the sitter's reddish hair and prominent display of the paper, the portrait might possibly represent Andrew Brown, Jr., son of the Irish-born founder and publisher of the paper, Andrew Brown, Sr (c 1744-1797); the junior Brown was himself the paper's editor from 1797 to September 29, 1801 But there seems to be no known connection of either of the Browns with the Spanish military Order of Santiago (St James), which this sitter prominently wears twice, both in an embroidery and on an enameled badge The gold- braided uniform coat again appears Spanish, and it is thus plausible that the portrait represents an ambassador or diplomat of Spain, accredited to the United States government in Philadelphia, before its transfer to Washington in the fall of 1800 This powerful image might, however, have been painted in Spain, with a newspaper taken back to Madrid by a returning diplomat, for some reason of its special relevance to Spanish-American relations in 1800-1802 or just after Negotiations between the two governments over the withdrawal of Spanish garrisons from the Old Natchez District (still unresolved after the 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo, as a result of which Congress established the Mississippi Territory in 1798), were still ongoing during these first years of Thomas Jefferson's Presidency Even more importantly, by the Treaty of San Ildefonso of October 15, 1802, Spain secretly retroceded to France the entire territory that was to become Jefferson's 'Louisiana Purchase': after a contract negotiated in April 1803, that whole central section of the North American continent was officially ceded by Spain to France in the Cabildo in New Orleans on November 30, 1803, and by France to the United States in the same room a month later The evidently high-ranking personage represented in this portrait may well have been centrally involved in one or several of these great events.