4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2010.

Martha Bussey White and her Daughter Rose Elizabeth

Artist Joshua Johnson (American, ca. 1765 - after 1825)

Dateca. 1808-09

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 30 x 25 1/2 in. (76.2 x 64.8 cm)
Overall, Frame: 35 x 30 1/8 x 2 in. (88.9 x 76.5 x 5.1 cm)

ClassificationsAmerican art

Credit LineGift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

Object number74.6.12

Terms

Woman
Girl
Mother
Daughter
African-American Artist
White
Black
Red
Green
American naive
Baltimore, MD

Collections

American Art before 1945

On View

On view

DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas double portrait of a mother and child. The mother, a woman of about thirty, is seated on a Sheraton sofa; standing at her left side is a child of about two years of age. The mother has blue-gray eyes and light hair. She wears a high-waisted black dress with white muslin and lace guimpe, and with sleeves trimmed with white lace. In her right hand she holds a half opened book, and her left arm encircles the child. The child is turned slightly to the left toward her mother. She wears a high-waisted muslin dress trimmed about the neck with lace. Her right hand rests on her mother's shoulder and in her left hand she holds a bunch of strawberry leaves and berries. The sofa is covered with some dark material attached to the frame with brass-headed tacks. The background is gray.

Label TextJoshua Johnson American, active ca. 1796–1824 Mrs. Abraham White, Jr., and Daughter Rose, ca. 1808–09 Oil on canvas As the wife and daughter of a Baltimore grocer, Martha Bussey White and baby Rose are a typical middle-class family, posing in their finest dresses and lace in this formal portrait. Its creator was the esteemed local painter Joshua Johnson, the son of a white man and an enslaved black woman. Freed at age 19 and probably self-taught as a painter, Johnson became one of the nation’s earliest professional African American artists. He admired and competed with highly trained portraitists like Charles Peale Polk, whose likeness of George Washington hangs to the right. Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch 74.6.12