McPherson & Oliver
The Scourged Back

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • The Scourged Back
  • Gordon Under Medical Inspection
DateApril 2, 1863
PlaceBaton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
MediumAlbumen silver print from glass negative
DimensionsImage: 3 1/2 × 2 in. (8.9 × 5.1 cm)
Sheet: 3 5/8 × 2 3/16 in. (9.2 × 5.6 cm)
Mount: 4 × 2 3/8 in. (10.1 × 6.1 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach, Directors
Object number2021.66
Current Location
The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building
Gallery 208
On view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

After repeatedly being beaten and whipped at a Louisiana plantation, this man escaped from slavery and fled to a Union camp at Baton Rouge in March 1863, where a camp photographer took a series of photographs that graphically demonstrated the brutality he had endured. The image was copied by other photographers and reproduced in Harper’s Weekly, prompting one contemporary commentator at the time to write, “This card-photograph should be multiplied by the hundred thousand, and scattered over the states.” Even today, it remains powerful proof of the inhumanity of America’s antebellum slavery system.


Provenance[Swann Auction Galleries, New York, Printed & Manuscript African Americana, March 25, 2021, Lot 7]; purchased by MFAH, 2021.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
The photographic image includes the printed caption of the original carte de visite at the bottom: Copy of a photograph taken from life at Baton // Rouge, La. April 2 1863.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

Infantry, Sergeant Major
Oliver H. Willard
1866
Albumen silver print from glass negative with applied color
2015.415
Light Artillery, Private
Oliver H. Willard
1866
Albumen silver print from glass negative with applied color
2015.417
Engineer, Musician
Oliver H. Willard
1866
Albumen silver print from glass negative with applied color
2015.416
Infantry, Private
Oliver H. Willard
1866
Albumen silver print from glass negative with applied color
2015.414
Billy Mayer Road, Tennessee
Larry McPherson
1978
Dye imbibition print
2003.882
Inauguration du boulevard Prince-Eugène, place de la Nation à Paris. Fête du 7 décembre 1862.
Édouard Hermagis
December 7, 1862
Albumen silver print from glass negative, collodion emulsion transferred from glass to paper, modern salted paper print
2022.216.1-.3
1860s–1870s
Album of albumen silver prints from glass negatives, with applied color
2021.658
[Julia Jackson (Later Julia Prinsep Stephen)]
mid-1860s
Albumen silver print from glass negative
2023.1108
Collapse of the Sainte-Croix Church, Quimperlé
Jules Duclos
1862
Albumen silver print from glass negative
2024.31
Xie Kitchin
Lewis Carroll
1874
Albumen silver print from glass negative
2024.32
Marie Delahaye
Charles Delahaye
c. 1865
Albumen silver print from glass negative
2023.368