REV. ROBERT B. DOBBINS
Excerpt from a letter to me
dated September 27, 1997 from Carl H. Peterson, Ph.D. - a friend, a cousin, a descendant
in-law of Robert B. Dobbins and a retired college History Professor:
"…I learned something yesterday that may be of
interest to you. I was lecturing on New
England church history and had prepared an overhead of the 1670s woodcut by
John Foster of the Rev. John Davenport of New Haven. I asked my colleague Larry Bryant what it was
that Davenport was holding between his fingers.
As I had guessed, Larry identified them as spectacles, but he added that
they were a "signature gesture," an iconographical convention
intended to identify the subject as a studious clergyman. He showed me a painting by Van Eyck which is
supposed to have been the first painting of eyeglasses ever done and which was
the origin of this convention. It seems
that when the Rev. Robert B. Dobbins had his picture taken he knew exactly how
it should be done."
Rev. Dobbins (whose middle name was Boyd, as shown on a deed he executed in Fulton County, Illinois) was active in the ministry from his Ordination in 1804 until his death in 1854. He will be given a blog write-up soon. He was my 4th great grandfather.
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