Ezra Stiles, a prominent Rhode Island minister and later the seventh president of Yale College, commissioned this portrait of Rabbi Raphael Haijm Isaac Karigal in 1781 as a tribute to their close friendship. Dressed to lead a service at the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, Rabbi Carigal is shown on the eve of Purim, March 8, 1773. Reverend Ezra Stiles attended this service, recalling that Carigal was "dressed in a red Garment with the usual Phylacteries and habilments, the white silk Surplice; he wore a high brown fur cap, had a long Beard." One of the few ordained rabbis to visit colonial America, the learned and well-traveled Carigal spent six months in Newport. He and Stiles became close friends, sharing a rich interfaith dialogue that this portrait commemorates.