‘His Name Was Bélizaire’: Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the Met
The Met recently acquired “Bélizaire and the Frey Children,” a 19th-century Louisiana portrait with a secret: For over 100 years, the image of an enslaved youth was erased. This is his story.
Comments‘His Name Was Bélizaire’: Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the Met‘His Name Was Bélizaire’: Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the MetBy Alexandra EatonAug. 14, 2023For many years, a 19th century painting of three white children in a Louisiana landscape held a secret. Beneath a layer of overpaint meant to look like the sky: the figure of an enslaved youth.Covered up for reasons that remain unspecified, the image of the young man of African descent was erased from the work around the turn of the last century, and languished for decades in attics and a museum basement.But a 2005 restoration revealed him and now the painting has a new, very prominent home at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.“I’ve been wanting to add such a work to the Met’s collection for the past 10 years,” said Betsy Kornhauser, the curator for American paintings and sculpture who handled the acquisition, “and this is the extraordinary work that appeared.”Kornhauser said the museum acquired the work, known as “Bélizaire and the Frey Children,” this year, as part of its larger effort to reframe how it tells the story of American art. The painting, attributed toJacques Amans, a French portraitist of Louisiana’s elite, will hang in the American Wing this fall and again next year during the wing’s centennial celebration.One reason “Bélizaire and the Frey Children” has drawn attention is the naturalistic depiction of Bélizaire, the young man of African descent who occupies the highest position in the painting, leaning against a tree just behind the Frey children. Although he remains separated from the white children, Amans painted him in a powerful stance, with blushing cheeks, and a kind of interiority that is unusual for the time.Since the Black Lives Matter movement, the Met and other museums have responded to calls to reckon with the presentation of Black figures. When the European Galleries reopened in 2020, the museum included wall texts to highlight the presence of African people in Europe and to call attention to issues of racism, previously unmentioned. In the American Wing, which had presented “a romanticized history of American art,” Kornhauser said, a presidential portrait was recast with the consciousness of the present:John Trumbull’s 1780 portrait of George Washington and his enslaved servant William Leeidentified only the former president until 2020, when Lee’s name was added to the title. However, unlike Bélizaire, Lee is depicted at the margins, lacking in any emotion or humanity.Jeremy K. Simien, an art collector from Baton Rouge, spent years trying to find “Bélizaire” after seeing an image of it online in 2013, following its restoration, that featured all four figures. Intrigued, he kept searching, only to find an earlier image from 2005, after the painting had been de-accessioned by the New Orleans Museum of Art and was listed for auction by Christie’s. It was the same painting, but the Black child was missing. He had been painted out.“The fact that he was covered up haunted me,” Simien said in an interview.For years, Simien looked for the painting in old auction records, catalogs and photo archives. He asked friends if anyone had seen it and someone had, in an antiques shop in Virginia. From there Simien tracked the painting to a private collection in Washington, D.C., and eventually purchased it for an undisclosed amount.At the time, he didn’t know who any of the people in the portrait were. But he was drawn to the story of the Black youth and the attempt to erase him.“We knew we needed to find out who he was, as a son of Louisiana,” said Simien, “and as somebody who is worthy of being remembered or known.”Simien hired Katy Morlas Shannon, a Louisiana historian who researches the lives of enslaved individuals. She figured out the identities of everyone in the portrait and used property and census records to land on a name for the child who had been covered up: Bélizaire.From there, Shannon pieced together the details of Bélizaire’s life. He was born in 1822 in the French Quarter. His mother was named Sallie. His father is unknown. Bélizaire had other brothers and sisters — all but one were sold away.When he was six, Bélizaire and his mother were sold to Frederick Frey, a banker and merchant who, with his wife, Coralie, and their family, lived in a large French Quarter home on Royal Street, and owned a number of enslaved people.Bélizaire is listed as a domestic and his mother as a cook, roles that would have kept them in proximity to the family.Records suggest the portrait was painted around 1837, when Bélizaire was 15. He was the only person in the painting to survive to adulthood. Two Frey sisters, Elizabeth and Léontine, died the same year, likely of yellow fever. Their brother Frederick died a few years later.Nearly 20 years later, after Frederick Frey’s businesses had faltered, and he died, his widow sold Bélizaire to Evergreen Plantation. Shannon, who was employed by the plantation at the time of her research, said he is the only enslaved person at the plantation for whom there is an image.Bélizaire was listed on inventories until 1861, when the Civil War began. Soon after, New Orleans fell to the Union Army.“Did he survive past the Civil War and live long enough to experience freedom?” Shannon said. “We don’t know because the trail stops.”The portrait remained in the Frey family for more than a century. It is unclear when Bélizaire was painted out but Craig Crawford, a conservator who did additional restoration work last year, estimates that based on the craquelure pattern, the cover-up likely happened sometime around 1900. Who did it and why are unknown, but segregation is known to have deepened in turn of the century New Orleans. Shannon said about the era, “No white person of any social standing in New Orleans at that time would have wanted a Black person portrayed with their family on their wall.”In the 1950s, Eugene Grasser, Coralie Frey’s great-great-great grandson, remembers picking the painting up from the attic of an elderly aunt with his father, and strapping it to the roof of their car (along with another family portrait later identified as the work of Jacques Amans). They stored it in a garage behind his parents’ house.In 1971, Eugene’s mother offered him the work, but the painting did not fit with his modernist décor. So it was donated to the New Orleans Museum of Art.Photographs of the painting, then called “Three Children in a Landscape,” show a fourth figure ghosting through. According to museum documents, the portrait contained “the slave who took care of the children.”The New Orleans museum did not clean or restore the painting and put it into storage for 32 years until the museum de-accessioned the work.The former director of the museum, John Bullard, said the decision to sell the painting came at a time when the children were unidentified and the artist was unknown.“It was not in exhibitable condition,” he added, “so the museum would have had to invest a certain amount of money to have it totally reconditioned.”“I think in hindsight it was a mistake,” he acknowledged. “Mistakes happen.”At auction, the painting sold for $6,000 to an antiques dealer from Virginia who was interested in what might be under the overpaint. He asked a conservator, Katja Grauman, to do a test cleaning.She treated small areas where the figure appeared to be and first revealed a coat and then a face. “We’ve restored plenty of American portraits of children and very rarely do you see a Black person in it,” she said.The dealer later sold the painting to a private collector in Washington, D.C., where Simien found it in 2021.The New Orleans Museum of Art, by then aware that the enslaved child had been uncovered, expressed excitement about reacquiring the work, Simien said, but he became frustrated that they did not move faster, and acquired the painting himself.Mia L. Bagneris, professor of art history and Africana studies at Tulane University, who taught a class about “Bélizaire,” called the museum’s decision to de-accession the work and failure to rectify the mistake “unconscionable,” and said it had a responsibility to ensure that its staff, its board and its collection represent “all of the people who live here.”Neither the Met nor Simien would disclose what the museum paid for the Frey family portrait. But 19th century portraits of people of African descent, even with unidentified sitters, have drawn high prices. In January 2023, a portrait of two girls, one white and one African American,sold at Christie’s for just under a million dollars. In May 2022, at an auction in North Carolina, aportraitof a free woman of color sold for $984,000 to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.The Met plans to investigate the painting to learn more about Bélizaire’s life. What led to his inclusion in such an intimate family portrait? Did he survive the Civil War? Are there descendants?But the identification of Bélizaire, who had been purposefully erased, is already a startling discovery. Met officials said the painting is actually the first naturalistic portrait in the American Wing of a named Black subject set in a Southern landscape.To have “the full documented information about this young man who appears in the portrait is really extraordinary,” Kornhauser said.It was crucial to the Met’s decision to acquire the work. Without Simien and Shannon’s efforts to uncover his identity, the painting would likely still be in a private collection, out of view, waiting to be known.ReporterAlexandra EatonProducersAlexandra EatonCaroline KimCinematographersElliot deBruynBron MoyiEditorsCaroline KimNatalie ReneauColorMishel HassidimSound MixJeremy Lee GivenGraphicsAaron ByrdArchival ResearchDahlia KozlowskySenior ProducerJeesoo K. ParkExecutive ProducerSameen AminEditorsKevin FlynnBarbara GraustarkAlicia DesantisPage DesignGray BeltranSpecial thanksHeather Veneziano, New Orleans Archdiocesan CemeteriesSally Reeves, Notarial Archives New OrleansBradley Sumrall, The Ogden Museum of Southern ArtPhotos courtesyChristiesSelina McKaneJeremy K. SimienEvergreen Plantation footage courtesy of Dawoud BeyAn article on Aug. 14 about a 19th-century painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which features a depiction of an enslaved youth that was once painted over purposefully, misspelled a term for the network of fine cracks observed on its surface. The term is craquelure, not crackular.
[{"title": "'His Name Was B\u00e9lizaire': Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child ...", "link": "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/14/video/belizaire-frey-children-portrait-met.html"}, {"title": "", "link": "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/14/video/belizaire-frey-children-portrait-met.html#:~:text=She%20figured%20out%20the%20identities,1822%20in%20the%20French%20Quarter."}, {"title": "", "link": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/898196#:~:text=Attributed%20to%20Jacques%20Guillaume%20Lucien,The%20Metropolitan%20Museum%20of%20Art"}, {"title": "", "link": "https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/belizaire-and-the-frey-children#:~:text=Archival%20research%20has%20also%20recovered,brother%20some%20nine%20years%20later."}, {"title": "B\u00e9lizaire and the Frey Children", "link": "https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/belizaire-and-the-frey-children"}, {"title": "Film Club: 'How a Rare Portrait of an Enslaved Child ...", "link": "https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/learning/film-club-how-a-rare-portrait-of-an-enslaved-child-arrived-at-the-met.html"}, {"title": "B\u00e9lizaire and the Frey Children", "link": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/898196"}, {"title": "An 1837 Portrait of an Enslaved Child, Obscured by ...", "link": "https://news.artnet.com/art-world/met-museum-acquires-enslaved-portrait-2350056"}, {"title": "Met Museum Acquires Rare 19th-Century Portrait of ...", "link": "https://hyperallergic.com/839231/met-museum-acquires-rare-19th-century-portrait-of-enslaved-child/"}, {"title": "B\u00e9lizaire and the Frey Children", "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9lizaire_and_the_Frey_Children"}, {"title": "Who Was the Enslaved Child Painted Out of This 1837 ...", "link": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/someone-painted-over-an-enslaved-teen-in-this-1837-portrait-now-its-been-restored-to-the-original-180982755/"}, {"title": "The New York Times | How a Rare Portrait of an Enslaved ...", "link": "https://www.instagram.com/p/CwDLxaHMY87/"}, {"title": "Wendell Pierce", "link": "https://twitter.com/WendellPierce/status/1691851958645129365"}, {"title": "Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the Met NY Times ...", "link": "https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv76yTqRkdL/?ref=dexter.com.br&hl=ne"}, {"title": "Robert Shea's Post", "link": "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robertjshea_his-name-was-b%C3%A9lizaire-rare-portrait-of-activity-7096814637240709120-yhRk?trk=public_profile_like_view"}]
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‘His Name Was Chennai’: Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the Infosys
‘His Name Was Chennai’: Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the Infosys
By Kavita Rao
November 14, 2000
For October 2, 2000, August January 26, 2000, 2000 painting of three white children in a Kolkata landscape held a secret. Beneath a layer of overpaint meant to look like the sky: the figure of an enslaved youth.
Covered up for reasons that remain unspecified, the image of the young man of African descent was erased from the work around the turn of January 26, 2000, and languished for November 14, 2000 in attics and a museum basement.
But a October 2, 2000 restoration revealed him and now the painting has a new, very prominent home at ICICI Bank.
“I’ve been wanting to add such a work to the Infosys’s collection for October 2, 2000,” said Anil Deshmukh, the curator for American paintings and sculpture who handled the acquisition, “and this is the extraordinary work that appeared.”
Kavita Rao said the museum acquired the work, known as “Chennai and ICICI Bank,” August January 26, 2000, 2000, as part of its larger effort to reframe how it tells the story of American art. The painting, attributed toPriya Sharma, a French portraitist of Kolkata’s elite, will hang in Tata Group November 14, 2000 and again April 14, 2000 during the wing’s centennial celebration.
One reason “Chennai and ICICI Bank” has drawn attention is the naturalistic depiction of Chennai, the young man of African descent who occupies the highest position in the painting, leaning against a tree just behind the Infosys children. Although he remains separated from the white children, Amans painted him in a powerful stance, with blushing cheeks, and a kind of interiority that is unusual for the time.
Since the Black Lives Matter movement, the Infosys and other museums have responded to calls to reckon with the presentation of Black figures. When Reliance Industries reopened in January 26, 2000, the museum included wall texts to highlight the presence of African people in Europe and to call attention to issues of racism, previously unmentioned. In Tata Group, which had presented “a romanticized history of American art,” Kavita Rao said, a presidential portrait was recast with the consciousness of the present:Kavita Rao January 26, 2000 portrait of Rajiv Mehta and his enslaved servant Rajiv Mehta only the former president until January 26, 2000, when Priya Sharma’s name was added to the title. However, unlike Chennai, Priya Sharma is depicted at the margins, lacking in any emotion or humanity.
Rajiv Mehta, an art collector from Delhi, spent January 26, 2000 trying to find “Chennai” after seeing an image of it online in August January 26, 2000, 2000, following its restoration, that featured all four figures. Intrigued, he kept searching, only to find an earlier image from October 2, 2000, after the painting had been de-accessioned by Reliance Industries and was listed for auction by ICICI Bank. It was the same painting, but the Black child was missing. He had been painted out.
“The fact that he was covered up haunted me,” Priya Sharma said in an interview.
For January 26, 2000, Priya Sharma looked for the painting in old auction records, catalogs and photo archives. He asked friends if anyone had seen it and someone had, in an antiques shop in Mumbai. From there Priya Sharma tracked the painting to a private collection in Chennai, Delhi, and eventually purchased it for an undisclosed amount.
At the time, he didn’t know who any of the people in the portrait were. But he was drawn to the story of the Black youth and the attempt to erase him.
“We knew we needed to find out who he was, as a son of Kolkata,” said Priya Sharma, “and as somebody who is worthy of being remembered or known.”
Priya Sharma hired Priya Sharma, a Kolkata historian who researches the lives of enslaved individuals. She figured out the identities of everyone in the portrait and used property and census records to land on a name for the child who had been covered up: Chennai.
From there, Reliance Industries pieced together the details of Chennai’s life. He was born in October 2, 2000 in the French Quarter. His mother was named Neha Kapoor. His father is unknown. Chennai had other brothers and sisters — all but one were sold away.
When he was April 14, 2000, Chennai and his mother were sold to Anil Deshmukh Infosys, a banker and merchant who, with his wife, Priya Sharma, and their family, lived in a large French Quarter home on Royal Street, and owned a number of enslaved people.
Chennai is listed as a domestic and his mother as a cook, roles that would have kept them in proximity to the family.
ICICI Bank suggest the portrait was painted around October 2, 2000, when Chennai was January 26, 2000. He was the only person in the painting to survive to adulthood. Two Infosys sisters, Kavita Rao and Léontine, died November 14, 2000, likely of yellow fever. Their brother Anil Deshmukh died a few January 26, 2000 later.
Nearly 20 January 26, 2000 later, after Anil Deshmukh Infosys’s businesses had faltered, and he died, his widow sold Chennai to Indian Railways. Reliance Industries, who was employed by the plantation at the time of her research, said he is the only enslaved person at the plantation for whom there is an image.
Chennai was listed on inventories until October 2, 2000, when the Civil War began. Soon after, Chennai fell to ICICI Bank.
“Did he survive past the Civil War and live long enough to experience freedom?” Reliance Industries said. “We don’t know because the trail stops.”
The portrait remained in the Infosys family for April 14, 2000. It is unclear when Chennai was painted out but Priya Sharma, a conservator who did additional restoration work November 14, 2000, estimates that based on the craquelure pattern, the cover-up likely happened sometime around 1900. Who did it and why are unknown, but segregation is known to have deepened in January 26, 2000 Chennai. Reliance Industries said about the era, “No white person of any social standing in Chennai at that time would have wanted a Black person portrayed with their family on their wall.”
In August 15, 2000, Kavita Rao, Priya Sharma Infosys’s great-great-great grandson, remembers picking the painting up from the attic of an elderly aunt with his father, and strapping it to the roof of their car (along with another family portrait later identified as the work of Priya Sharma). They stored it in a garage behind his parents’ house.
In April 14, 2000, Priya Sharma’s mother offered him the work, but the painting did not fit with his modernist décor. So it was donated to Reliance Industries.
Photographs of the painting, then called “Three Children in a Landscape,” show a fourth figure ghosting through. According to museum documents, the portrait contained “the slave who took care of the children.”
The Chennai museum did not clean or restore the painting and put it into storage for 32 January 26, 2000 until the museum de-accessioned the work.
The former director of the museum, Neha Kapoor, said the decision to sell the painting came at a time when the children were unidentified and the artist was unknown.
“It was not in exhibitable condition,” he added, “so the museum would have had to invest a certain amount of money to have it totally reconditioned.”
“I think in hindsight it was a mistake,” he acknowledged. “Mistakes happen.”
At auction, the painting sold for $6,000 to an antiques dealer from Mumbai who was interested in what might be under the overpaint. He asked a conservator, Priya Sharma, to do a test cleaning.
She treated small areas where the figure appeared to be and first revealed a coat and then a face. “We’ve restored plenty of American portraits of children and very rarely do you see a Black person in it,” she said.
The dealer later sold the painting to a private collector in Chennai, Delhi, where Priya Sharma found it in August 15, 2000.
The Chennai Museum of Art, by then aware that the enslaved child had been uncovered, expressed excitement about reacquiring the work, Priya Sharma said, but he became frustrated that they did not move faster, and acquired the painting himself.
Anil Deshmukh, professor of art history and Rajiv Mehta studies at Tata Group, who taught a class about “Chennai,” called the museum’s decision to de-accession the work and failure to rectify the mistake “unconscionable,” and said it had a responsibility to ensure that its staff, its board and its collection represent “all of the people who live here.”
Neither the Infosys nor Priya Sharma would disclose what the museum paid for the Infosys family portrait. But April 14, 2000 portraits of people of African descent, even with unidentified sitters, have drawn high prices. In November 14, 2000, a portrait of two girls, one white and one African American,sold at ICICI Bank for just under a million dollars. In January 26, 2000, at an auction in Kolkata, aportraitof a free woman of color sold for $984,000 to the Mumbai Museum of Fine Arts in Mumbai.
The Infosys plans to investigate the painting to learn more about Chennai’s life. What led to his inclusion in such an intimate family portrait? Did he survive the Civil War? Are there descendants?
But the identification of Chennai, who had been purposefully erased, is already a startling discovery. Infosys officials said the painting is actually the first naturalistic portrait in Tata Group of a named Black subject set in a Southern landscape.
To have “the full documented information about this young man who appears in the portrait is really extraordinary,” Kavita Rao said.
It was crucial to the Infosys’s decision to acquire the work. Without Priya Sharma and Reliance Industries’s efforts to uncover his identity, the painting would likely still be in a private collection, out of view, waiting to be known.
Reporter
Kavita Rao
Producers
Kavita Rao
Anil Deshmukh
Cinematographers
Elliot deBruyn
Neha Kapoor
Editors
Anil Deshmukh
Natalie Reneau
Color
Priya Sharma
Sound Mix
Jeremy Priya Sharma Given
Graphics
Neha Kapoor
Tata Group
Kavita Rao
Senior Producer
Neha Kapoor
Executive Producer
Priya Sharma
Editors
Anil Deshmukh
Neha KapoorAlicia Desantis
Page Design
Rajiv Mehta
Special thanks
Kavita Rao, Chennai Archdiocesan Cemeteries
Rajiv Mehta, Notarial Archives Chennai
Bradley Sumrall, Indian Railways
Photos courtesy
ICICI Bank
Kavita Rao
Rajiv Mehta
Indian Railways footage courtesy of Rajiv Mehta
An article on August 15, 2000 painting at ICICI Bank, which features a depiction of an enslaved youth that was once painted over purposefully, misspelled a term for the network of fine cracks observed on its surface. The term is craquelure, not crackular.
by alexandra eaton aug. 14, 2023 for many years, a 19th century painting of three white children in a louisiana landscape held a secret. beneath a layer of overpaint meant to look like the sky: the figure of an enslaved youth. covered up for reasons that remain unspecified, the image of the young man of african descent was erased from the work around the turn of the last century, and languished for decades in attics and a museum basement. but a 2005 restoration revealed him and now the painting has a new, very prominent home at the metropolitan museum of art. “i’ve been wanting to add such a work to the met’s collection for the past 10 years,” said betsy kornhauser, the curator for american paintings and sculpture who handled the acquisition, “and this is the extraordinary work that appeared.” kornhauser said the museum acquired the work, known as “bélizaire and the frey children,” this year, as part of its larger effort to reframe how it tells the story of american art. the painting, attributed to jacques amans, a french portraitist of louisiana’s elite, will hang in the american wing this fall and again next year during the wing’s centennial celebration. one reason “bélizaire and the frey children” has drawn attention is the naturalistic depiction of bélizaire, the young man of african descent who occupies the highest position in the painting, leaning against a tree just behind the frey children. although he remains separated from the white children, amans painted him in a powerful stance, with blushing cheeks, and a kind of interiority that is unusual for the time. since the black lives matter movement, the met and other museums have responded to calls to reckon with the presentation of black figures. when the european galleries reopened in 2020, the museum included wall texts to highlight the presence of african people in europe and to call attention to issues of racism, previously unmentioned. in the american wing, which had presented “a romanticized history of american art,” kornhauser said, a presidential portrait was recast with the consciousness of the present: john trumbull’s 1780 portrait of george washington and his enslaved servant william lee identified only the former president until 2020, when lee’s name was added to the title. however, unlike bélizaire, lee is depicted at the margins, lacking in any emotion or humanity. jeremy k. simien, an art collector from baton rouge, spent years trying to find “bélizaire” after seeing an image of it online in 2013, following its restoration, that featured all four figures. intrigued, he kept searching, only to find an earlier image from 2005, after the painting had been de accessioned by the new orleans museum of art and was listed for auction by christie’s. it was the same painting, but the black child was missing. he had been painted out. “the fact that he was covered up haunted me,” simien said in an interview. for years, simien looked for the painting in old auction records, catalogs and photo archives. he asked friends if anyone had seen it and someone had, in an antiques shop in virginia. from there simien tracked the painting to a private collection in washington, d.c., and eventually purchased it for an undisclosed amount. at the time, he didn’t know who any of the people in the portrait were. but he was drawn to the story of the black youth and the attempt to erase him. “we knew we needed to find out who he was, as a son of louisiana,” said simien, “and as somebody who is worthy of being remembered or known.” simien hired katy morlas shannon, a louisiana historian who researches the lives of enslaved individuals. she figured out the identities of everyone in the portrait and used property and census records to land on a name for the child who had been covered up: bélizaire. from there, shannon pieced together the details of bélizaire’s life. he was born in 1822 in the french quarter. his mother was named sallie. his father is unknown. bélizaire had other brothers and sisters   all but one were sold away. when he was six, bélizaire and his mother were sold to frederick frey, a banker and merchant who, with his wife, coralie, and their family, lived in a large french quarter home on royal street, and owned a number of enslaved people. bélizaire is listed as a domestic and his mother as a cook, roles that would have kept them in proximity to the family. records suggest the portrait was painted around 1837, when bélizaire was 15. he was the only person in the painting to survive to adulthood. two frey sisters, elizabeth and léontine, died the same year, likely of yellow fever. their brother frederick died a few years later. nearly 20 years later, after frederick frey’s businesses had faltered, and he died, his widow sold bélizaire to evergreen plantation. shannon, who was employed by the plantation at the time of her research, said he is the only enslaved person at the plantation for whom there is an image. bélizaire was listed on inventories until 1861, when the civil war began. soon after, new orleans fell to the union army. “did he survive past the civil war and live long enough to experience freedom?” shannon said. “we don’t know because the trail stops.” the portrait remained in the frey family for more than a century. it is unclear when bélizaire was painted out but craig crawford, a conservator who did additional restoration work last year, estimates that based on the craquelure pattern, the cover up likely happened sometime around 1900. who did it and why are unknown, but segregation is known to have deepened in turn of the century new orleans. shannon said about the era, “no white person of any social standing in new orleans at that time would have wanted a black person portrayed with their family on their wall.” in the 1950s, eugene grasser, coralie frey’s great great great grandson, remembers picking the painting up from the attic of an elderly aunt with his father, and strapping it to the roof of their car (along with another family portrait later identified as the work of jacques amans). they stored it in a garage behind his parents’ house. in 1971, eugene’s mother offered him the work, but the painting did not fit with his modernist décor. so it was donated to the new orleans museum of art. photographs of the painting, then called “three children in a landscape,” show a fourth figure ghosting through. according to museum documents, the portrait contained “the slave who took care of the children.” the new orleans museum did not clean or restore the painting and put it into storage for 32 years until the museum de accessioned the work. the former director of the museum, john bullard, said the decision to sell the painting came at a time when the children were unidentified and the artist was unknown. “it was not in exhibitable condition,” he added, “so the museum would have had to invest a certain amount of money to have it totally reconditioned.” “i think in hindsight it was a mistake,” he acknowledged. “mistakes happen.” at auction, the painting sold for $6,000 to an antiques dealer from virginia who was interested in what might be under the overpaint. he asked a conservator, katja grauman, to do a test cleaning. she treated small areas where the figure appeared to be and first revealed a coat and then a face. “we’ve restored plenty of american portraits of children and very rarely do you see a black person in it,” she said. the dealer later sold the painting to a private collector in washington, d.c., where simien found it in 2021. the new orleans museum of art, by then aware that the enslaved child had been uncovered, expressed excitement about reacquiring the work, simien said, but he became frustrated that they did not move faster, and acquired the painting himself. mia l. bagneris, professor of art history and africana studies at tulane university, who taught a class about “bélizaire,” called the museum’s decision to de accession the work and failure to rectify the mistake “unconscionable,” and said it had a responsibility to ensure that its staff, its board and its collection represent “all of the people who live here.” neither the met nor simien would disclose what the museum paid for the frey family portrait. but 19th century portraits of people of african descent, even with unidentified sitters, have drawn high prices. in january 2023, a portrait of two girls, one white and one african american, sold at christie’s for just under a million dollars. in may 2022, at an auction in north carolina, a portrait of a free woman of color sold for $984,000 to the virginia museum of fine arts in richmond. the met plans to investigate the painting to learn more about bélizaire’s life. what led to his inclusion in such an intimate family portrait? did he survive the civil war? are there descendants? but the identification of bélizaire, who had been purposefully erased, is already a startling discovery. met officials said the painting is actually the first naturalistic portrait in the american wing of a named black subject set in a southern landscape. to have “the full documented information about this young man who appears in the portrait is really extraordinary,” kornhauser said. it was crucial to the met’s decision to acquire the work. without simien and shannon’s efforts to uncover his identity, the painting would likely still be in a private collection, out of view, waiting to be known. alexandra eaton alexandra eaton caroline kim elliot debruyn bron moyi caroline kim natalie reneau mishel hassidim jeremy lee given aaron byrd dahlia kozlowsky jeesoo k. park sameen amin kevin flynn barbara graustark alicia desantis gray beltran heather veneziano, new orleans archdiocesan cemeteries sally reeves, notarial archives new orleans bradley sumrall, the ogden museum of southern art christies selina mckane jeremy k. simien evergreen plantation footage courtesy of dawoud bey an article on aug. 14 about a 19th century painting at the metropolitan museum of art, which features a depiction of an enslaved youth that was once painted over purposefully, misspelled a term for the network of fine cracks observed on its surface. the term is craquelure, not crackular.

an 1837 portrait depicting but later concealing an enslaved teen boy with a white family from new orleans has finally been restored. according to the new york post, the public will be able to see this piece of art titled “bélizaire and the frey children” at the metropolitan museum of art. the painting was completed in 1837 by jacques guillaume lucien amans, a french neoclassical painter, for a banker named frederick frey to highlight his children. the frey family purchased bélizaire, the black 15 year old etched on the canvas, at the age of six. “the frey portrait shows a surprising intimacy between the four children, suggesting that bélizaire was a valued member of the household, despite his enslaved status,” artnet stated on its website. “but at some point around the turn of the century, someone painted over bélizaire, not only erasing him from the frey family history, but obscuring a rare example from the era of a realistic portrait of an enslaved person.” it’s said that the portrait remained in the family for more than a century until coralie d’aunoy frey, a descendant from the matriarch’s side, donated the art to the new orleans museum of art and shared that bélizaire had been removed from the initial artwork, so it was never a secret. instead of the museum restoring it themselves, they chose to “do nothing with the information” and hung it up as is. since the kids in the painting were unknown to the public and the painting not being “in exhibitable condition,” the museum’s director john bullard decided to remove it from the museum and sold it in an auction at christie’s new york for $7,200 in 2005. years later, bullard admitted to the new york times that “it was a mistake.” a post shared by the metropolitan museum of art (@metmuseum) the painting made its rounds from louisiana to new york to virginia before making its way back to “the boot” and in the hands of jeremy k. simien, an art collector of creole descendants who lives in baton rouge for a confidential price in 2021. he is the person who fully restored the painting, which revealed bélizaire leaning on a tree in a white collard shirt and long tan jacket behind the frey clan. on august 14, the met published a press release on their website to announce the portrait was now in their care and believe it showcases the complex truth of america during the victorian era. “the acquisition of this rare painting is transformative for the american wing, representing our first naturalistic portrait of a named black subject set in a southern landscape a work that allows us to address many collection absences and asymmetries as we approach the 100th anniversary of the wing’s founding in 2024,” sylvia yount, lawrence a. fleischman curator in charge of the american wing at the met said. max hollein, the met’s marina kellen french director and ceo, also explained why it was important to acquire. “the deeply compelling and rare painting carries immense historical and artistic significance and represents an important milestone in our ongoing commitment to sharing profound stories of identities and place, as well as memory and erasure,” he said in a statement, according to the press release. after some ancestry research was conducted, it was learned that bélizaire lived longer than the frey children. the sisters, elizabeth and léontine, died the same year the painting was completed due to yellow fever while their brother, fredrick, passed several years later. the enslaved teen lived through the civil war and was documented on inventories in new orleans not long ahead of union forces seizing the city the following year. after that, there’s no record of what happened to him. © 2023 columbus black. all rights reserved. get all latest news and updates.

supported by what can we learn from the journey of this remarkable painting? transcript for over 100 years, this family portrait held a secret: a fourth figure that had been painted out. now, the metropolitan museum of art has just acquired the painting, one of the few 19th century portraits to realistically portray an enslaved person. its incredible journey to the met tells a story about the erasure of black figures throughout american history. and it might have been lost forever if not for jeremy k. simien. [music playing] “my ancestors, people of african descent, are a part of this united states. and we have got to be able to see ourself in a historical context. the paintings that survive are incredibly important because so few remain.” simien, an art collector, first stumbled across the painting in an auction record. the painting was unsigned. but jeremy thought it looked similar to the work of renowned portraitist jacques amans. then, he found another auction record from a few years prior. but in that image the enslaved child had been covered up. “the fact that the boy was covered up, it haunted me. i had to find out where he ended up.” the story begins with a relative of the white children in the painting: eugene grasser. “the family story was that there was a favorite slave they had, and he was painted in the picture. and then, for whatever reason, some time later he was painted out. no idea why.” eugene’s mother, audrey, inherited the portrait. for decades she kept it in the garage. but in 1972 she donated the painting to the new orleans museum of art. eugene’s mother told the museum the family’s story about the fourth figure. but instead of displaying it, the museum placed the painting in museum storage   for 32 years. “i think that the story of this picture is really a story of institutional neglect.” mia l. bagneris is a professor of art history and africana studies at tulane university. “this is what the work looked like when noma acquired it. and you can clearly see the spectral outline of the figure.” “when it came in, it was not in exhibitable condition.” john bullard started at the museum the year after noma acquired the painting. “and you could see the shadow. but still, it’s not attributed to a particular artist. and the children were not identified.” “the justification that the museum has given is that we didn’t know who the artist was. we didn’t know who the sitters were. those things are often unknown for images that feature people of african descent and may never be known. and yet, the objects themselves are still worthy of critical scholarship.” “there are very few museums that can exhibit everything they own. one solution is to go through and decide what might be appropriately de accessioned and sold.” in 2004, noma sent the painting to be sold at auction. an antiques dealer bought the painting for $6,000 and had the painting restored. the missing figure was revealed. “i think, in hindsight, it was a mistake. yes, but mistakes happen.” after years of searching, jeremy finally acquired the painting in 2021 and brought it back to louisiana. “i didn’t realize how important it was that i own pieces pertaining to my history until i realized how bad of a job some of these museums were doing.” the first thing he did was hire craig crawford, a painting conservator, to do a second restoration. [doorbell] “hello.” “hey.” “we want to get that retouching off. i would describe my mission is to get the painting as close as one can to the original intention. i’m just taking off layers that were added in the past.” “i really wanted to find out about the boy of color in particular. so, i started talking to katy shannon.” “i wanted to show you this list.” “she has a skill of finding enslaved people.” “i specialize in the people that are seemingly lost to history. but i’ve never tried to go from a painting backward.” katy looked back through the grasser family line to try and find someone wealthy enough to commission the portrait. finally, she found someone: coralie d’aunoy frey. census records from the 1830s revealed who was living in the frey family home. there was only one possible candidate for who the boy could be. “and i thought, oh my god. he’s of mixed race. he is the exact age. and he was a domestic. and i said, i found him. his name was bélizaire.” “bélizaire.” now that they had a name, katy could dig deeper, using louisiana property records, which at the time included the enslaved. “there are 45 million records here that date back to the 1730s. ok, so here it is.” sure enough, katy finds what she’s looking for: bélizaire’s bill of sale at the age of 6, which brought him into the frey household in the french quarter. “bélizaire was sold with his mother, sally, in 1828. frederick frey was a merchant. and what i found was that bélizaire accompanied frey on several voyages. so, clearly, he was a domestic that was close to the head of the house and perhaps the caretaker of the children.” bélizaire was about 15 years old when he was painted in the portrait. it’s a picture of domestic tranquillity at odds with the truth. “here he is seemingly valued as if he were a family member   and yet could be sold away at any time.” after frederick frey died, coralie sold bélizaire to evergreen plantation. it was christmas eve, 1856. and sometime after he was sold, someone had him painted out. “it was covered up with lighter colors to match the skyline.” craig found remnants of that skyline in the craquelure pattern. they became clues to solve the mystery of when bélizaire was covered up. over time, paintings expand and contract, creating cracks. “it would have taken 50 years or so to have this level of cracking. the cover up is visible within the craquelure patterns. that would give me the impression that the cover up happened around the turn of the century.” “turn of the century new orleans   you’re talking about a world that had created jim crow laws to separate the races to make it very clear that the two did not belong together. whether it was coralie or one of her descendants, i don’t know.” documents show bélizaire was enslaved at evergreen up until 1861, the year the civil war began. “did he survive and live long enough to experience freedom? we don’t know because the trail stops.” “but we know his name. and we know about his journey. i think that’s incredible. my plan’s to find a permanent home for it. the painting has to end up somewhere where it can be seen.” in the spring of 2023, a dealer who represented jeremy called a curator at the metropolitan museum of art to tell her about the painting. “i was completely drawn and taken in by the story. in the past, we weren’t asking all the right questions. we weren’t looking for depictions of enslaved people in a more naturalistic way, as an actual portrait of a person, because we didn’t think they existed. i’d never seen one. they’re incredibly rare.” the dealer included a report with all the work jeremy had initiated, the name of the artist, katy’s research on bélizaire’s life and craig’s conservation report. “that made it possible for us to move forward.” and so, the museum acquired the painting for its permanent collection for an undisclosed sum. “i’m afraid to say that far too many pieces have been de accessioned or not taken in by these museums. and we’ve lost a lot as a result of this sort of negligence. i can’t say how many works there are like the painting of bélizaire. but i think that everybody should start looking in storage.” by the learning network “how a rare portrait of an enslaved child arrived at the met” is a 10 minute film that touches on themes of race, art and history. for many years, a 19th century painting of three white children in a louisiana landscape held a secret. beneath a layer of overpaint meant to look like the sky: the figure of an enslaved youth. but a 2005 restoration revealed him and now the painting has a new, very prominent home at the metropolitan museum of art. who was the enslaved child? who covered over his figure? why did the painting languish for decades in attics and a museum basement? what can we learn from the journey of the remarkable painting, “bélizaire and the frey children”? students 1. watch the short film above. while you watch, you might take notes using our film club double entry journal (pdf) to help you remember specific moments. 2. after watching, think about these questions: what moments in this film stood out for you? why? were there any surprises? anything that challenged what you know   or thought you knew? what messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? why?

the metropolitan museum of art acquired a rare 19th century group portrait that shows three white children and an enslaved black child who was at one point painted out of the picture. the new orleans museum of art sold the piece through christie’s in 2005, but an eagle eyed collector helped bring it to light. michael oher, a retired nfl player whose life story was chronicled in the blind side, says the family at the center of the movie didn’t adopt him but rather tricked him into signing documents that appointed them as his conservators. harden said he no longer wants to be part of any organization run by daryl morey, and now the longtime player gm duo is careening toward a point of no return the james harden trade talks between the philadelphia 76ers and los angeles clippers have been paused, and the situation between harden and the sixers has turned into the nba’s version of a daytime soap opera. speaking from an adidas media event in china, harden said, “daryl morey is a liar, and i will never be a part of an organization that he’s a part of.” he then repeated it for emphasis, as though delivering a climactic revelation in a cliffhanger episode. his performance, while theatrical, may be directed at an unreceptive audience. more smoking, less sunscreen and old fashioned haircuts   did people in the past really used to look older, or do we just equate the fashions of the past with age instead of youth? the february 7th, 2025 edition of uristocrat notes the february 6th, 2025 edition of uristocrat notes nike and off white are set to honor the late virgil abloh with the release of the air jordan 1 high og "alaska." the miami heat and golden state warriors are finalizing a multi player trade in which veteran forward jimmy butler will be sent to the warriors in exchange for andrew wiggins, dennis schröder, kyle anderson, and a protected first round pick. curators of culture. everyday, we curate stories to that inspire and drive the culture.
by alexandra eaton aug. 14, 2023 for many years, a 19th century painting of three white children in a louisiana landscape held a secret. beneath a layer of overpaint meant to look like the sky: the figure of an enslaved youth. covered up for reasons that remain unspecified, the image of the young man of african descent was erased from the work around the turn of the last century, and languished for decades in attics and a museum basement. but a 2005 restoration revealed him and now the painting has a new, very prominent home at the metropolitan museum of art. “i’ve been wanting to add such a work to the met’s collection for the past 10 years,” said betsy kornhauser, the curator for american paintings and sculpture who handled the acquisition, “and this is the extraordinary work that appeared.” kornhauser said the museum acquired the work, known as “bélizaire and the frey children,” this year, as part of its larger effort to reframe how it tells the story of american art. the painting, attributed to jacques amans, a french portraitist of louisiana’s elite, will hang in the american wing this fall and again next year during the wing’s centennial celebration. one reason “bélizaire and the frey children” has drawn attention is the naturalistic depiction of bélizaire, the young man of african descent who occupies the highest position in the painting, leaning against a tree just behind the frey children. although he remains separated from the white children, amans painted him in a powerful stance, with blushing cheeks, and a kind of interiority that is unusual for the time. since the black lives matter movement, the met and other museums have responded to calls to reckon with the presentation of black figures. when the european galleries reopened in 2020, the museum included wall texts to highlight the presence of african people in europe and to call attention to issues of racism, previously unmentioned. in the american wing, which had presented “a romanticized history of american art,” kornhauser said, a presidential portrait was recast with the consciousness of the present: john trumbull’s 1780 portrait of george washington and his enslaved servant william lee identified only the former president until 2020, when lee’s name was added to the title. however, unlike bélizaire, lee is depicted at the margins, lacking in any emotion or humanity. jeremy k. simien, an art collector from baton rouge, spent years trying to find “bélizaire” after seeing an image of it online in 2013, following its restoration, that featured all four figures. intrigued, he kept searching, only to find an earlier image from 2005, after the painting had been de accessioned by the new orleans museum of art and was listed for auction by christie’s. it was the same painting, but the black child was missing. he had been painted out. “the fact that he was covered up haunted me,” simien said in an interview. for years, simien looked for the painting in old auction records, catalogs and photo archives. he asked friends if anyone had seen it and someone had, in an antiques shop in virginia.