- [Harry and Eliza Stephens and Their Children]
Sheet: 2 7/16 × 3 5/8 in. (6.2 × 9.2 cm)
Mount: 4 × 5 1/16 in. (10.1 × 12.8 cm)
Explore Further
Despite its small size, this modest family portrait is monumental in its meaning—a poignant episode in the journey of African Americans. Harry and Eliza Stephens and their children—Quinn, Fanny, Ellen, Dora, and Tim—were enslaved at Liberty Hall, home of Alexander Hamilton Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy. Having survived slavery and the Civil War when so many other families were broken and dispersed, they present themselves as a proud, loving, and indivisible family unit. At the right edge, George, the gardener and stable man at the nearby Crawfordville School, holds a United States flag.
Provenance[Swann Auction Galleries, Printed & Manuscript African Americana, May 7, 2020, Sale 2534, Lot 260]; purchased by MFAH, 2020.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
H. Stephens taken in 1866 in
the grove at Liberty Hall, Ga.
1. Harry the Manager.
2. Quinn the boy baby.
3 Aunt Eliza the cook.
4. Fanny youngest girl.
5. Ellen, the housemaid
6. Dora, second girl.
7. Tim the house boy
8. George, with [U.S.] flag, gardener and stable man.
Crawfordville School.
Biographer of
Stephens Henry M. Cleveland.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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