UNKNOWN MAKER
PROPERTY FROM THE JACKIE NAPOLEAN WILSON COLLECTION
UNKNOWN MAKER

"Portrait of a mother and child" ("Madonna")

Details
UNKNOWN MAKER
"Portrait of a mother and child" ("Madonna")
Sixth-plate tintype, gilt highlighting. Circa 1860. Leather case.
Literature
Wilson, Hidden Witness:African-American Images from the Dawn of Photography to the Civil War, pp. 123-133; "Facing History: Images of African-Americans Illuminate a Proud Past, Smithsonian Magazine, Noevmeber 1999, p. 137.
Exhibited
Photographs from Detroit Collections: An Exhibition Inaugurating the Albert and Peggy de Salle Gallery of Photographs, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1983;
Hidden Witness:African-Americans in Early Photography, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, 29 February - 18 June 1995.

Lot Essay

"Portrait of a mother and child" or more fondly known as "Madonna", this sixth-plate tintype is at the core of the Jackie Napolean Wilson Collection. The quiet dignity of this mother figure and her child is emblematic of Mr. Wilson's affinity for images which express the strength and pride of the African American in this country in the later part of the nineteenth century.

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