John Nelson Arnold was an American portrait painter born in Masonville, Connecticut in 1834. His work can be found in the Rhode Island State House (as he painted the portraits of numerous Rhode Island Governors) and also among Brown University’s collection of portraits of prominent people including John Russell Bartlett, John Hay, and Sarah Helen Whitman. His 1869 oil painting of Sarah Helen Whitman is seen below, and you can read about it here.

Arnold published a book titled “Arts and Artists in Rhode Island” in 1905. He died in 1909 and is buried in Grace Church Cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island.