This web page provides a sampling of images (portraits and engravings) of the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 naval figure, Joshua Barney. It will interweave historical narrative with information about the artists/engravers and a running commentary of Adobe Photoshop 7 restoration and retouching manipulations.

Early Years

A seafaring life began early for Barney, who at eleven joined the crew of a Baltimore pilot boat. By sixteen he distinguished himself by assuming command of a merchant vessel whose captain, Barney’s brother-in-law, died during an Atlantic crossing. The nautical skills and commercial acumen Barney developed just prior to the American Revolution were redirected to serving his country.

As an officer in both the Continental and Pennsylvania State navies, Barney engaged the British in numerous battles, was captured three times, and successfully implemented a daring escape from Mill Prison in England. Employing several disguises, he returned to America, whereupon the state of Pennsylvania appointed him to command the better armed Hyder Ally. While convoying merchant vessels in Delaware Bay, Barney engaged the superior General Monk and succeeded through skillful naval tactics and a ruse to capture this British ship. Barney’s wartime exploits established his place in the pantheon of American heroes.

Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827), artist and museum founder, painted numerous civilian, military, and naval figures of the American Revolution era. He eventually displayed these portraits of distinguished Americans along with his natural history collection in a museum that he established during the 1780s in Philadelphia. Peale’s museum was an important cultural and educational landmark for the new republic because it was “the first scientifically organized and continuous museum of natural history and art open to the public in America.”1

Peale possibly painted this portrait (see above) of Joshua Barney in 1788 during one of Barney’s frequent visits to Philadelphia that year. The image depicts a young Barney, twenty-nine years old, in a Continental Navy uniform. The following is a physical description of the painting: Oil on canvas. Bust length, nearly left profile. Dark blue uniform coat with red facings, brass buttons, and gold epaulettes, white stock and shirt ruffle. Powdered hair in a queue tied with a black ribbon, brown eyes. Dark brown background. 23 x 20 inches.

The original color photograph was 4.75 x 5.75 inches. I scanned it in True Color at a 300 resolution as a tif. You can see bare canvas on the four corners, as well as vertical lines on either side of the image. Using the histogram, I adjusted the overall contrast and tone by moving the shadows and the highlights levels only slightly. I removed the pink cast by using auto color. I created a Vignette layer and corrected the vertical line on the right side using the patch tool. I used the elliptical marquee tool to create an oval vignette. In quick mask mode, a Gaussian blur was applied with a radius of 20 pixels and 1 percent noise. The background was filled with white. I sharpened the overall focus of the image by using unsharp mask with settings of 75 percent for the amount with a 1 pixel radius. (See above left.)

Postrevolutionary Period

Barney’s postrevolutionary years reflected his peripatetic lifestyle. He undertook various business ventures, engaged in partisan politics as a Federalist supporter, and in 1794 almost joined the ranks of the fledgling republic’s first naval officers, until a perceived slight forced him to decline an appointment. Returning to merchant service briefly, Barney soon succumbed to the lure of naval life, but this time as a commodore in the navy of the French republic. No doubt animosity toward his former British captors enticed Barney to serve with the French.

Before his 1802 discharge, Barney engaged the services of the French republic’s court painter, Jean Baptiste Isabey  (1767–1855), who specialized in miniatures. About 1800 Isabey rendered a watercolor on ivory (three-inch diameter) of Barney’s likeness. This metal-framed image depicts Barney in the naval uniform of the French republic. On either side there is a faint hint of a line of ships on the horizon.

The original image (below left) that I used to scan was a 4.5 x 5.5 inch color photograph. I scanned it at a 300 resolution as a tif. I cropped the image to a smaller size and selected a circle to cut out the original frame and tapestry background. To improve the contrast and tone, I adjusted the shadows in the levels histogram. I removed the color cast in the background by using the auto color feature.

I chose this image to restore because of the following imperfections: at the top between his head and the frame there is a puckered area; on the left background there is a stain and a tear that was improperly repaired; on the right background there are three dark dots; and on his coat there are several splotches and streaks. In another layer, I adjusted the hue and saturation. I used the dodge tool to highlight the epaulettes, buttons, and collar. I used the burn tool to define the hairline and to darken his right cheek to eliminate a light vertical streak. The patch tool was used to correct the problems in the background and on his uniform. This tool was particularly appropriate for repairing the uniform because one can see under a higher magnification that the artist applied a red and blue woven effect. To finish the image, I applied a stroke to add a border, 5 pixels wide with an 80 percent transparency. Finally, I used the unsharp mask. (See above right.)

War of 1812

After serving in the French navy for several years, Barney returned to Baltimore in 1802 and continued a business career while dabbling unsuccessfully in politics. When war broke out with the British in June 1812, Barney chose privateering rather than naval service. His success at commerce-raiding was spectacular—capturing, during a ninety-day cruise, some eighteen vessels valued at $1.5 million. Why then did Barney, two days before his fifty-fourth birthday, propose a plan to defend the Chesapeake Bay against an anticipated British invasion, and offer to create and command a flotilla of barges and gunboats that would serve as the core of that defense? Perhaps Barney was a true nationalist whose disaffection with the British, beginning during the American Revolution when he suffered three stints of British captivity, was never forgotten.

After spending nine months superintending the construction, purchase, manning, and outfitting of a squadron of barges, Barney was ready by April 1814 to face the British forces in the Chesapeake. A far superior British force eventually blockaded and destroyed the Chesapeake flotilla. But Barney’s loss of his vessels did not deter him from continuing to serve his country. As the British invaders marched toward Washington in late August 1814, the American forces hastily chose Bladensburg, Maryland, as the place to confront them. Although the seasoned British regulars eventually overwhelmed the Americans, it was the contingent of flotillamen and marines under Joshua Barney’s command who stood longer than the American regulars and militia.

Barney’s steadfast courage during the War of 1812 assured his continuing place as an American hero. Several engravings of Barney attest to his continued fame during the nineteenth century. This one (below left) by J. Gross, a reputable engraver of portraits, was done for the publishers of The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans.2The similarities with the Isabey miniature are evident, but notice that while the French uniform is retained, American-style epaulettes and the lower arms, hand, and sword have been added. The original black and white photograph measured 4 x 6.5 inches and included a textual area with the artists’ attributions and Barney’s signature. I cropped this area out in order to avoid contrast problems. I scanned it in as a tif with a 300 resolution. I adjusted slightly the highlight levels in the tonal histogram. The lower portion of his coat was too dark as was the right side of the image below the sword. The dodge tool lightened these areas. Barney’s image was selected with the lasso tool and the background was filled in with white. Under adjustments, I selected variations, moved the selector to fine, selected midtones, then selected the more blue icon three times. This created the colorized image on the right.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale (1778–1860) painted Barney also, but his oil painting was done posthumously in 1819 and depicts an older, distinguished naval hero, adorned with the Society of the Cincinnati medal. Another rendering of this medal is shown here to illustrate greater detail. This society is the oldest hereditary military society in North America, founded in 1783 just before the American revolutionary army disbanded. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a Roman farmer who epitomized the ideal of the citizen-soldier who left his land to serve as a general but who returned to civilian life after the war ended. Joshua Barney represented the quintessential citizen-sailor. He justly deserved this medal.

The city of Baltimore commissioned Peale to paint the “defenders” of the city during the War of 1812 and this oil on canvas rendering of Barney is one of those paintings. The original is 38 9/64 x 31 3/32 inches. The following is the Maryland Historical Society’s description of their portrait: Half-length portrait, short tousled hair, military uniform, brown coat with gold buttons, right hand holds sword, gray background. I resized the original black and white photograph of 7.5 x 9.5 inches to about 4.5 x 6. I scanned it at 300 resolution. (See below left.) These pictures will illustrate black and white “before” and hand-colored “after” images. I decided to hand-color this image (below right) in order to have a blue coat instead of the brown described because the latter color is not appropriate for a naval uniform.

Again, I started with tonal adjustments and in a new layer I lightened the right side of the picture using the dodge and patch tools. This was necessary to create better definition around the sword and his left arm. I used web-safe colors from the swatches palette to color the epaulettes and buttons (dark yellow) and the coat (dark blue). I chose various shades of brown for his eyes, eyebrows, and hair. In addition, I drastically magnified the Society of the Cincinnati medal in order to color it, using the above image as a guide. I sampled three skin-tone colors from the above Charles Willson Peale image to color Barney’s face and hands. The images above show the black and white original and its hand-colored version.

For the final vignette version, I applied the same techniques as above but used a 30 pixel radius with 1 percent noise.

[Credits for images: Joshua Barney by Charles Willson Peale, from life, c. 1784-1793. Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia; Commodore Joshua Barney by Jean Baptiste Isabey, c. 1800. National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, D.C.; Joshua Barney by J. Gross from a drawing by W. C. Armstrong after a minature by Jean Baptiste Isabey. The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, vol. 4 (Philadelphia: D. Rice and A.N. Hart, 1859); Joshua Barney, 1819, by Rembrandt Peale. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.]

1Lillian B. Miller, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 17 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 194.

2The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, vol. 4 (Philadelphia: D. Rice and A. N. Hart, 1859).

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