Historic Portrait of Frederick Sells for $508,750
Neal Auction has sold notable American portraits for over forty years. Works by José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, Charles Willson Peale, Jacques Amans, and Jules Lion, to name a select few, have briefly graced our walls and subsequently joined important public and private collections.
The “Portrait of Frederick” is one of only a handful of known portraits of individual enslaved sitters created prior to the Civil War in the South and represents perhaps the most significant work of American art that we have had the honor to offer to date. The painting represents the complex intersection of African American portraiture, American history, art history, race theory and personhood.
Displayed at Longwood, the famed historic, antebellum mansion, in Natchez, Mississippi since the 1860s, the “Portrait of Frederick” is an image that has been well-known to visitors and scholars for many decades yet simultaneously remains clouded in mystery and family lore. Nineteenth century portraiture was almost without fail relegated to those with means in the American South – particularly the wealthy planter class – and almost entirely reserved for white sitters, or in rare instances, free people of color. So how does this pre-Emancipation portrait of an enslaved man exist and why?
We felt that it was our duty to the consignor, the future buyer, and most especially to Frederick, that we do everything in our limited time with the portrait to uncover the truth. The first phone call was an obvious one. Katy Morlas Shannon, a Louisiana-based historian and author who has made it her life’s work to uncover the lost genealogies and stories of enslaved people and recently uncoverd the identity of Bélizaire in the now famous “Bélizaire and the Frey Children” group portrait painting that was acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2023. From my first communication with Morlas Shannon, I knew we had found someone who was as passionate about the project as we were – someone who joined us in our immediate obsession with Frederick’s story. Importantly, she also had in-depth knowledge of where to begin the research, and the skill set and relentless determination to wade through miles of archives, hundreds of practically illegible handwritten historic documents, and many emotionally wrenching histories.
Morlas Shannon’s research undertaken on behalf of Neal Auction is remarkable for the breadth and depth of information she has uncovered regarding Frederick’s life. Her discoveries shed new light on his role as an enslaved individual for the Nutt family, the type of work in which he was engaged and his family life both prior to and following the Civil War. This research allows for interpretative analysis, critical discussion and historical context in ways that have not been previously possible for this portrait and for the extraordinarily rare category of portraits of enslaved individuals.
The “Portrait of Frederick” is concurrently a classic three-quarter portrait of a man and a compelling demonstration of the power of portraits to shape our perception of history. The considerations of context, individuality, and societal status are more critical than ever when faced with a portrait of an individual who was denied personhood. As Dr. Jennifer Van Horn, author of Portraits of Resistance: Activating Art During Slavery (Yale University Press, 2022) states regarding the two known Mississippi portraits of enslaved people: “One could even imagine that Frederick and Delia were themselves the patrons as well as the subjects of these works. That is fiction…The portraits present a false agency, using the sitters’ seeming autonomy to bestow a freedom to refuse that they did not in reality possess.” Fredericks’ countenance is an enigmatic one, and one cannot help but try to imagine how this man might have felt when faced with the highly unusual task of sitting for a portrait. C.R. Parker presents him as composed, unsmiling and with his eyes directed to the side. He wears formal clothing that seems at odds with the job we now know he did for his enslavers, and while the process of having one’s portrait painted is, in its very nature, an objectifying one, nonetheless Frederick’s presence is commanding. His gaze is powerful though mysterious. What does the world look like from his eyes? What does it feel like? These are the questions that arise when one’s likeness, one’s humanity, is documented.
Over time and throughout generations, much like in a game of telephone, details were lost and his identity became blurry, until nothing but his name, Frederick, truly remained, along with the only narrative that could reconcile the history of the South as we are taught and the radical existence of this very artifact. While we may never know the reason why Haller Nutt commissioned this nuanced and sensitive portrait of Frederick, we have now at the very least revealed more of the truth of his story thanks to Morlas Shannon’s tireless work. There are likely answers that will never be found, but in the not knowing, and through its very existence, the legacy of the “Portrait of Frederick” will continue to challenge audiences and help us better understand and grapple with our unique and complicated history.
Neal Auction is honored to have played a small role in the long history of this portrait and wishes to thank the Pilgrimage Garden Club of Natchez for entrusting it to us. The “Portrait of Frederick” survives due to their stewardship, and we all hope it will continue to inform, inspire and be conserved for generations to come.
