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Martha Bussey White and her Daughter Rose Elizabeth
Artist:
Joshua Johnson
(American, ca. 1765 - after 1825)
Date: ca. 1808-09
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Overall: 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)
Classification: American art
Credit Line: Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch
Object number: 74.6.12
Terms
- Woman
- African-American Artist
- Mother
- Daughter
- Girl
- White
- Green
- Black
- Red
- American naive
- Baltimore, MD
In Collection(s)
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.
Exhibition History"American Naïve Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: 111 Masterpieces from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch," traveling exhibition by the American Federation of Arts, New York; Grand Palais, Paris, France, February 16 - April 18, 1968; Amerika House, Berlin, Germany, May 3 - June 10, 1968; Palazzo Collicola, Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto, Italy, June 28 - July 14, 1968; Royal Academy of Arts, London, England, September 6 - October 20, 1968; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Belgium, November 7 - December 29, 1968; Cason del Buen Ritiro, Madrid, Spain, January 15 - February 16, 1969; Palacio de La Virreina, Barcelona, Spain, February 21 - March 16, 1969; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, March 24 - April 27, 1969; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., June 12 - September 1, 1969; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y., September 15 - November 2, 1969; Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Tex., November 16, 1969 - January 4, 1970; U.S. Military Academy Library, West Point, Va., January 22 - February 15, 1970; Nihombashi Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, Japan, September 3 - 20, 1970. (Exh. cat. no. 32)
"American Naïve Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: 22 Masterpieces from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch," Chrysler Art Museum, Provincetown, Mass., June 12 - July 29, 1970. (Exh. cat. no. 8)
"Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976. (Exh. cat. p. 33, 46)
"Images of Childhood from the Chrysler Museum," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., July 29 - September 16, 1990.
"Regional American Painting to 1920," Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, S.C., November 6 - December 30, 1990. (Exh. cat. not paged)
"Reopening of the Joan P. Brock Galleries," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Opening in March of 2008.
"American Treasures at the Willoughby-Baylor House," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, January 2 - December 1, 2013.
"American Naïve Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: 22 Masterpieces from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch," Chrysler Art Museum, Provincetown, Mass., June 12 - July 29, 1970. (Exh. cat. no. 8)
"Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976. (Exh. cat. p. 33, 46)
"Images of Childhood from the Chrysler Museum," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., July 29 - September 16, 1990.
"Regional American Painting to 1920," Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, S.C., November 6 - December 30, 1990. (Exh. cat. not paged)
"Reopening of the Joan P. Brock Galleries," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Opening in March of 2008.
"American Treasures at the Willoughby-Baylor House," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, January 2 - December 1, 2013.
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
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
Published References
J. Hall Pleasants, _An Early Baltimore Negro Portrait Painter: Joshua Johnston_ (Walpole Society, 1940), 20, no. XII, 40-41.
J. Hall Pleasants, "Joshua Johnston, The First American Negro Portrait Painter," _Maryland Historical Magazine_ 37 (June 1942): 148.
_American Naïve Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: 111 Masterpieces from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch_, exh. cat., American Federation of Arts, New York, 1969, plate 32.
_American Naïve Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: 22 Masterpieces from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch_, exh. cat., Chrysler Museum, Provincetown, Mass., 1970, plate 8.
_The Gift of American Naïve Paintings from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch: 48 Masterpieces_, exh. cat., Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., 1975, plate 19, cover.
"The Gift of American Naïve Paintings from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 4 (May 1975): cover.
Dennis R. Anderson, _Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum_, exh. cat., Norfolk, Va., 1975, 33, 46.
"Joshua Johnson, Early Black Painter," _Colonial Homes_ 8 (September/October 1982): 129, fig. 8.
Carolyn J. Weekley, et al, _Joshua Johnson: Freeman and Early American Portrait Painter_, exh. cat., Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center and Maryland Historical Society, Williamsburg, Va. and Baltimore, Md., 1987, 142, no. 50.
_Regional American Painting to 1920_, exh. cat., Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, S.C., 1990, not paged.
Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_ (Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991), 87. ISBN: 0940744597, 0940744627
George Tucker, "Picture by Ex-Slave a Chrysler Favorite," _Virginian-Pilot and Ledger Star_ (Norfolk) May 1, 1994, C3.
Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 30, no. 9. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6
Provenance
Descended from Mrs. White to her great-grandson, Judge Francis Neale Parke, Norfolk, Va.; Auslew Gallery, Norfolk, Va.; Auslew Gallery sold it to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, February 8, 1964; Gift of Colonel Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch to the Chrysler Museum, 1974.
Catalogue EntryJoshua Johnson
Baltimore, Md. c. 1763; active c. 1796-1824
Mrs. Abraham White, Jr., and Daughter Rose, c. 1808-09
Oil on canvas, 30 × 25 1/2 in. (76.2 × 64.8 cm)
Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 74.6.12
Reference: Joshua Johnson. Freeman and Early American Portrait Painter, exhib. cat., Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1987-88, no. 50.
The revival of interest in early American folk art has led to the rediscovery of a host of humble artisan-painters. The disarmingly direct styles of these painters stand in marked contrast to the more sophisticated art of their academically trained colleagues (see objects 78.633.11, 80.181.20, 76.53.14, 78.633.3, 74.6.4, 77.1271, 76.53.1, 80.181.16). Among the most fascinating of America's nineteenth-century folk limners is the Baltimore painter Joshua Johnson.
The son of a white man and a black slave woman, Johnson was one of the very few artists of color working in the United States in the post-Revolutionary War period. He was also the first free AfricanAmerican portraitist in this country to earn a professional reputation. After an apprenticeship to a Baltimore blacksmith, Johnson-then roughly nineteen years old-was given his freedom, and he subsequently established himself in the city as a portrait painter. (He is identified as such in Baltimore city directories from 1796 to 1824.) Though some scholars have hypothesized that Johnson trained with a member of the illustrious Peale family of painters-with Charles Willson Peale, perhaps, or his nephew Charles Peale Polk (see objects 63.112.1, 62.94.1, 61.91.1)-there is no documentary evidence to support that contention. In his advertisement in a 1798 edition of the Baltimore Intelligencer newspaper, Johnson characterized himself as "a self-taught genius" who had overcome "many insuperable obstacles in the pursuit of his studies." Nevertheless, his later portraits take much of their imagery and compositional designs from the Peales' more polished portrait art.
Of the roughly eighty portraits that have been attributed to Johnson, only two depict African-American subjects. The rest of his sitters were prosperous whites, mostly members of Baltimore's middle class of merchants, military officers, and government officials. Several were abolitionist sympathizers. The Chrysler portrait depicts Martha Bussey White (1778-1809) and one of her seven children, Rose Elizabeth (1807-1875). Martha was the daughter of Captain Bennett Bussey of Hartford County, Maryland. In 1797 she married Abraham White, Jr., a Baltimore merchant who ran a grocery establishment on High Street, not far from Johnson's home. Johnson painted Martha and her daughter around 1808-09, about the time of Rose's second birthday and shortly before Martha's untimely death at the age of thirty.
Their attributes-Martha holds a book and Rose a sprig of strawberries-were used repeatedly by Johnson in his many portraits of women and children. Though his approach to his subjects is characteristically stylized, he nonetheless conveys the warmth of their relationship, the tenderness uniting the seated Mrs. White with the young daughter standing sweetly at her side.
JCH
Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 30, no. 9.
Baltimore, Md. c. 1763; active c. 1796-1824
Mrs. Abraham White, Jr., and Daughter Rose, c. 1808-09
Oil on canvas, 30 × 25 1/2 in. (76.2 × 64.8 cm)
Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 74.6.12
Reference: Joshua Johnson. Freeman and Early American Portrait Painter, exhib. cat., Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1987-88, no. 50.
The revival of interest in early American folk art has led to the rediscovery of a host of humble artisan-painters. The disarmingly direct styles of these painters stand in marked contrast to the more sophisticated art of their academically trained colleagues (see objects 78.633.11, 80.181.20, 76.53.14, 78.633.3, 74.6.4, 77.1271, 76.53.1, 80.181.16). Among the most fascinating of America's nineteenth-century folk limners is the Baltimore painter Joshua Johnson.
The son of a white man and a black slave woman, Johnson was one of the very few artists of color working in the United States in the post-Revolutionary War period. He was also the first free AfricanAmerican portraitist in this country to earn a professional reputation. After an apprenticeship to a Baltimore blacksmith, Johnson-then roughly nineteen years old-was given his freedom, and he subsequently established himself in the city as a portrait painter. (He is identified as such in Baltimore city directories from 1796 to 1824.) Though some scholars have hypothesized that Johnson trained with a member of the illustrious Peale family of painters-with Charles Willson Peale, perhaps, or his nephew Charles Peale Polk (see objects 63.112.1, 62.94.1, 61.91.1)-there is no documentary evidence to support that contention. In his advertisement in a 1798 edition of the Baltimore Intelligencer newspaper, Johnson characterized himself as "a self-taught genius" who had overcome "many insuperable obstacles in the pursuit of his studies." Nevertheless, his later portraits take much of their imagery and compositional designs from the Peales' more polished portrait art.
Of the roughly eighty portraits that have been attributed to Johnson, only two depict African-American subjects. The rest of his sitters were prosperous whites, mostly members of Baltimore's middle class of merchants, military officers, and government officials. Several were abolitionist sympathizers. The Chrysler portrait depicts Martha Bussey White (1778-1809) and one of her seven children, Rose Elizabeth (1807-1875). Martha was the daughter of Captain Bennett Bussey of Hartford County, Maryland. In 1797 she married Abraham White, Jr., a Baltimore merchant who ran a grocery establishment on High Street, not far from Johnson's home. Johnson painted Martha and her daughter around 1808-09, about the time of Rose's second birthday and shortly before Martha's untimely death at the age of thirty.
Their attributes-Martha holds a book and Rose a sprig of strawberries-were used repeatedly by Johnson in his many portraits of women and children. Though his approach to his subjects is characteristically stylized, he nonetheless conveys the warmth of their relationship, the tenderness uniting the seated Mrs. White with the young daughter standing sweetly at her side.
JCH
Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 30, no. 9.