Engraved Portraits of the First Methodist Divines

(MSS 357)


This collection contains forty-five engravings of Methodist theologians, leaders, and clergy members, as well as a few scenes of notable Methodist locations. There is also one engraving of The Last Supper as painted by Benjamin West. A number of notable engravers are credited, for example Thomas Illman, E. Mackenzie (Methodist Book Concern), J. W. Paradise, William D. Smith, and Thomas B. Welch. Many of the engravings were published at the Methodist Book Room in New York.

This volume was donated to the library by Eliza Allison Barry (1846-1922), the wife of Osgood Andrew Barry (1847-1907). On July 3, 1915, Bishop Joseph S. Key presented the volume to Bishop Warren Akin Candler on behalf of Mrs. Barry. According to a tipped-in note, the collection had been in O. A. Barry's family since antebellum times. The note reports that O. A. Barry's father, Judge George La Vallon Barry, had marked the abolitionists in the collection with a capital A beneath the image and an X on the page (ten portraits in the collection bear these markings).

Though the exact date of this collection is uncertain, it was likely completed and bound in the middle of the nineteenth century. The portrait of Robert Newton refers to his service in the Wesleyan Methodist Conference in 1840 and so the dates can be narrowed down to some time between 1840 and 1861.


Images of the Collection

Bibliography: "Ancient Japanese Armor Presented to Emory Museum" The Atlanta Constitution July 6, 1915, page 7.