Unknown African-American Man

Periodca. 1845 - 1850

MediumWatercolor, gouache, graphite, and ink on paper

Dimensions11.25 × 8.3 in. (28.6 × 21.1 cm)

ClassificationsPortraits

Credit LineMarshall P. Blankarn Purchasing Fund, 1986

Object number1986.2.1

DescriptionFull length profile portrait of an African-American male facing left, with a full head of black hair and a full beard. He is wearing a black jacket with high collar, white shirt, black tie, black trousers, and black shoes. He holds a slender cane in his left hand, and a top hat rests upside down on a boldly grain-painted three-leg stand in front of him. He stands on what appears to be a woven carpet or floor cloth.
Curatorial RemarksFormal portraits of African-Americans from the pre-Civil War era are scarce as few had the opportunity to sit for their portraits due to economic and social constraints. The artist who created this portrait and the companion work presumed to be his wife was most likely self-taught, as evidenced by the stylized execution of the background and figures as well as their flat perspective and slightly awkward proportion. The detail of the subjects' clothing is not realistically rendered, but rather implied with subtle strokes of white or faint gray over a solid block of black. However, the artist was quite skilled in delineating the features of her subjects faces with just a few spare lines so that they are distinct and recognizable as individuals. The style and composition of the portraits are solidly grounded in the American folk art tradition.NotesThis rare and elegant portrait, on loan to the Association from 1963 to 1985, documents the comfortable circumstance of a couple, presumably husband and wife, who may have been part of the free black community in Monmouth County during the years before the Civil War. It, along with the companion portrait of a female (accession number 1986.2.2) were sold to Mary Hartshorne Noonan by her cleaning lady, Dorothy Keyes Brooks, who said that they came from a former slave family who settled in the Navesink area. Research has shown that both of Dorothy's parents came from the south, which rules out her direct line. Another possibility is that they are ancestors of her first husband, Alfred Preval Shemo (1919 - 1998), whose great-grandfather Alfred A. Shemo (1844 - 1913) lived in a black community near Matawan that was called Africa. By 1850, there were 2,328 free blacks in Monmouth County. Many of those individuals still lived in white households working as laborers or domestics. But by that time there is evidence of a small but growing black middle class in the area.

Collections