by Camille Moreno

Considering Frieze Masters’ strict vetting policy, the energy at the fair is always distinctly different to Frieze Proper; calmer, posher, and generally more cerebral. It can also suffer from a lack of diversity.

Strolling the uniformly carpeted rows, it often starts to look a little “samey,” but a striking portrait at London, Pall Mall-based dealer Philip Mould’s booth (F07) stopped me dead in my tracks. A depiction of two young girls in matching high-waisted dresses and coral necklaces. Tranquilly domestic and exceedingly intimate, the portrait has all the familiar fittings of stuffy 19th century portraiture with an unexpected and gripping divergence.

Not only is it interracial, but the girls are unquestionably equal; the outfits, the poses, the real estate they each inhabit on the canvas. Estimated to have been painted in between 1820-1830, several decades before the abolishment of slavery in the United States, such a portrait is not only rare but radically progressive for the time.

Unlike the slew of homogeneously white portraits from the early 1800s and earlier, interracial depictions are an extreme anomaly. When they were depicted, it was often in a way that portrayed the highly stratified mid-colonial social order, such as 18th century Casta paintings ¹https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-18th-century-paintings-interracial-mexican-families-based-lie from Mexico depicting interracial couples and their children.

In the Casta paintings, ethnic categories were largely distinguished by clothing, where mixed-race couples would generally be dressed distinctly different from one another within the same painting. If they were wearing the same thing, subtle twisted details can be noted, such as mismatched stockings, bare feet, or ill-fitting clothes, always of course on the body of the non-white colleague. Blacks and indigenous people were almost always either painted in an unflattering light, or at the very least with a notable degree of physical separation.

Less than a handful of months ago, another rare portrait was publicised after it was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Known only as Bélizaire, the interracial portrait featured multiple children, including a domestic slave, Bélizaire.

Bélizaire’s likeness was completely painted over and later recovered during restoration, however there was always a small but evident gap between him and his alleged half-siblings. Painted in a subordinate position and on different level ground, one could argue that his initial rendering already made it easier to paint him out.

Unlike Bélizaire, the black sister in Girls is not only on equal footing, but also portrayed in a slightly more dominant posture, presumably because she is older. Mould has gone so far as to describe it as “the earliest interracial portrait, as far as we can determine, in American portrait history” with such intimate and affectionate body language and symbolism.

Though not explicitly conveyed, the proposition of sisterhood is proposed by their delicately selected props, including matching coral jewellery and a chapbook open to the story of Cinderella (potentially alluding to the prospect of step sisters, half sisters, and mixed families). Mould points out that fact that the props in portraiture are carefully considered, deeply symbolic, and imminently strategic as a way to convey information about the people being depicted, their relationships, and their lives.

Considering the cost and logistics of commissioning a portrait in the year 1832, they would have likely shared a household if not been related. Mould asserts that the girl on the left’s pose and props, including her rose and coral earrings, point to her being portrayed as the superior figure.

For a long time, it was a status symbol in both England and America to include slaves and/or freed but indentured servants in portraits²https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32743 as a demonstration of wealth and property, but the portraits always employed strong symbols and postures to convey contrasting relationships of dominion and inferiority. Girls has hence been compared to an equally affectionate portrait from the late 1700s of Dido Belle, the illegitimate great niece of the first Earl of Mansfield and a mixed daughter of a Carribbean slave and a British naval officer John Lindsay. She is pictured with Lady Elizabeth Murray, her cousin.

Painted on the grounds of the Kenwood Estate in Hamstead, London, the two girls are portrayed “more or less as social equals”³Butchart, Amber, Ninya Mikhaila, Harriet Waterhouse, and Hannah Marples. “A Stitch in Time S01E04 Dido Belle.” Elizabeth. YouTube, 12 February 2018. Accessed 11 July 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSDDJrlJukM despite Dido’s lack of title. Unlike similar portraiture of the time, which would portray black sitters virtually fading into the background, Dido occupies half the canvas, both taking a prominent position in the picture as well as being dressed similarly to Elizabeth.

Perhaps the most reminiscent to Girls is another double portrait from 1650 from the English School depicting a black Cromwellian woman dressed almost identically to her white female companion. With no background and minimal props, the most notable symbols are the bounty of decorative face patches. Even less is known about the context of this painting or anything about the sitters’ relationship.

Unlike its comparable works, Girls is now destined to a private collection. Previously owned by antiques dealer John Judkin, who cofounded the American Museum in Britain, the painting was inherited to Judkin’s partner Dr. Dallas Bache upon Judkin’s death in 1963. It was then acquired by Sotheby’s in 1995. After being auctioned several times, first from Sotheby’s, New York to Christie’s New York, it has now been acquired by Philip Mould & Co since January, 2023 for $945,000 during the Important Americana sale at almost 19 times its estimate ⁴https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/print-edition/2023/february/2578/news-digest/pick-of-the-week-dealer-philip-mould-buys-portrait-of-interracial-sisterhood/ and includes a condition report ⁵The work has been relined with a replaced stretcher (identified by microanalysis as red pine); the frame and liner are old and made of white pine (as identified by microanalysis). The reverse of the stretcher bears tape and across one member overlapping the tape and stretcher is the hand-inscription in chalk: JUDKIN. This indicates that the relining and replacement of the stretcher was done before 1963, when John Judkin died.

The following report was prepared by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.;

This work has an old glue lining. The varnish is slightly dull, but the work looks well overall. Under ultraviolet light, the girl on the right shows a few retouches in her hand and on the left side of her book. These retouches in the book extend into the blue dress of the girl on the left. There is one spot of retouching in the white dress. There are none in her face, and only a few in the shoulder and in the hair on the left side of the head. In the red curtain, there are a few retouches in the upper center. There is a group of small spots of retouching in the blue dress. In the figure on the left, there are areas where the artist applied the paint layer quite thinly, and some of this thinness has received retouches. These are clearly visible under ultraviolet light in the neck, isolated areas of the chest and shoulders, and on the left side of the face particularly. The retouches are well applied.

What’s more interesting, somewhat tragic, or perhaps simply bittersweet, is that such a work is for sale at an art fair at all. Upon its acquisition earlier this year, the Antiques Gazette cited Mould and his team wanting to conduct further research on the painting before “selling it to a museum.”⁶https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/print-edition/2023/february/2578/news-digest/pick-of-the-week-dealer-philip-mould-buys-portrait-of-interracial-sisterhood/

Unfortunately, even being in the hands of an institution would hot guarantee this paintings getting its due coverage, as most museum collections spend most of their time in storage. Where do you think it should go?