2d pair of rare 1800s portraits discovered

A year after the Philadelphia Museum of Art mounted, on long-term loan, a pair of exceedingly rare portraits of a pre-Civil War black Philadelphia couple, another pair of similar portraits has surfaced in the city.

Actually, they were all but hiding in plain sight.

Dave Emmi, a Haverford writer, stumbled over pendant portraits of well-known African American businessman and abolitionist Stephen Smith and his wife, Harriet Lee Smith, last summer in storage at the Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, he said in an interview.

Emmi believes the portraits date from the 1830s, which would mean they were painted slightly earlier than the 1841 Art Museum portraits of Hiram Charles Montier, a bootmaker and descendant of Richard Morrey, son of Philadelphia's first mayor, and his wife, Elizabeth Brown Montier.

The Montier portraits, painted by Franklin R. Street, depict young citizens of substance and poise. Similarly, the portraits of the Smiths present individuals of substantial presence.

"It's very exciting to think about," said Mark Mitchell, assistant curator of American art at the Art Museum and manager of its Center for American Art. "The wonderful thing about African American free society in this period is how vibrant it is and how aspirational it is. Successful members really wanted to create a standing for themselves on a par with their white neighbors."

One emblem of that standing was having one's portrait painted.

"The Stephen Smith portrait struck me as an unusual thing," Emmi said. "I knew a portrait of a black man before the Civil War was very rare."

What further intrigued him is that papers at the Atwater Kent asserted that the painter of the Smith portraits was also African American.

Emmi calls the discoveries "jaw-dropping," and has written a book Black Slave White Queen and Colors Between: Discovering America's First Black Portrait Artist (www.xlibris.com) in which he discusses the paintings, along with a portrait of Queen Christina of Sweden (also at the Atwater Kent).

There is no dispute about the Smith portraits' authenticity. They were donated to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1931 by Henrietta Clemens Mouserone, Smith's grandniece.

The portraits came to the Atwater Kent almost 20 years ago when the historical society shed its collection of artifacts and art. The Stephen Smith portrait was restored at that time and exhibited at the society prior to its departure. The Atwater Kent has also exhibited the Stephen Smith, but has never shown the portrait of his wife, which is seriously deteriorated and in need of conservation.

"It's on my list of things to do because I think it is an interesting and important portrait," said Jeffrey R. Ray, the museum's senior curator. "I was very interested in the Smith and about the artist, but I could find nothing about the artist."

Mouserone, in a short history she provided when she donated the portraits, said the painter was James "Stidun" (or "Stidum") - a "noted Negro artist."

Emmi mounts a speculative case that the artist might be a James Stidham, who lived on the bank of the Sassafras River in Kent County, Md., during the 1820s and '30s. The 1820 census lists Stidham as nonwhite; there was a mixed-race community in the area.

No other paintings by Stidun are known and he does not appear on any city register or tax record that Emmi has found so far.

Smith, on the other hand, is very well known. He was born into servitude c. 1797 and bought his freedom when he was about 20, after which he became a wealthy businessman in Columbia, Lancaster County, and was active in abolition matters. With his business partner, William Whipper, he was deeply involved in operating the Underground Railroad for those fleeing captivity in the South.

During antiblack riots in the mid-1830s, Smith's business in Columbia was attacked, and eventually he moved to Philadelphia. He continued his Underground Railroad work, built up his lumber and coal business, and became a generous philanthropist and an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

He is credited with founding Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, establishing and funding the Philadelphia Home for the Aged and Infirm, and rescuing Mantua's Olive Cemetery (which has since succumbed to development).

Kathleen Foster, curator for American art at the Art Museum, said the appearance of another pair of African American portraits dating from roughly the same period as the Montier portraits speaks to a particular moment.

"It's so interesting," Foster said. "It tells you something about the aspirations people had. It's not so much about which [portraits are] first. To me, four swallows make the springtime. Obviously [Smith] is a can-do guy, a determined person.

"I'm going to put money down that there are more portraits," she continued. "This is very exciting, an encouragement for everybody at every historical society."