Experts have unraveled the background of a portrait currently on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art—and they say it is likely the first work commissioned by a formerly.
Experts have unraveled the background of a portrait currently on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art—and they say it is likely the first work commissioned by a formerly enslaved American. James Johnston writes in the that the painting is of Mary Ann Tritt Cassell, a woman of mixed race, and is attributed to artist James Alexander Simpson. Cassell likely sat for the portrait for her wedding in 1839, and it’s believed that her mother, Henrietta Steptoe, commissioned the work. Steptoe was born a slave in 1779 in Virginia but freed in the early 1800s. (Click the Post link or one at Hyperallergic to see the painting.
