Rare portraits, intriguing link

A small gathering took place yesterday at the second-floor entrance gallery of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's American wing.

Nothing splashy or ostentatious, just a simple get-together to commemorate the long-term loan of two extraordinarily rare and distinctly Philadelphian images: portraits of a comfortable and prosperous 19th-century African American husband and wife.

Hiram Charles Montier, born in 1818, is splendidly depicted in brown-velvet vest, black coat and wide, richly patterned cravat; his wife, Elizabeth Brown Montier, born about 1820 in Northern Liberties, wears a full-sleeved satin gown, and a gold necklace and cross.

That such portraits of free, middle-class African Americans are on display would in itself be a rare event; what makes this couple all the more intriguing is that Hiram Montier was a direct descendant of Philadelphia's first mayor, Humphrey Morrey, appointed by William Penn in 1691.

Morrey's son Richard fell in love with an African servant, Cremona, freed her - along with the rest of his enslaved Africans - and lived with her in what is now the Edge Hill neighborhood of Glenside, in Cheltenham Township. There, they raised five children, and at his death, Richard Morrey bequeathed an estate of 198 acres to Cremona.

Three great-great-great-grandchildren of Hiram Montier (Richard and Cremona's great-grandson) and his wife, Elizabeth, traveled to Philadelphia from New York to witness the first public showing of the portraits, which had been in their family since they were painted in 1841.

"We restored them," said John Montier Pickens, 36, whose parents, William Pickens 3d and Patricia Pickens, have loaned the works to the museum. "The stars lined up. It's extraordinary. We have this black president about to be inaugurated. This is truly an American story that needed to be shared, and what better place to share it?"

Kathleen Foster, the museum's curator of American art, said the lives of Hiram and Elizabeth were emblematic of an aspect of the nation's racial story that is rarely portrayed: "prosperous, middle-class people enjoying life in the free black community."

"We hear so much about the darker stories of slavery," Foster said. "This is a story of integration."

Mark D. Mitchell, assistant curator of American art, said the paintings told a "story of mixed race and affection going all the way back to colonial times."

John Pickens, his brother William Pickens 4th, 39, and their sister, Pamela Pickens, 41, all on hand yesterday, said the family house - a Georgian affair that was once the heart of the Morrey estate - still stands on Limekiln Pike and Montier Road near Arcadia University.

Pamela said the paintings had been kept in storage under her grandmother's bed for years. "These were in fairly distressed shape before they were restored," she said. "I didn't even know she was wearing a necklace. Now, they're quite beautiful."

Hiram, who died in 1905, owned a bootmaking business on North Seventh Street at the time the paintings were made by Franklin R. Street.

The museum has no other examples of Street's work, Mitchell said. His name appears as an artist in city directories from the middle decades of the 19th century. Mitchell speculates that Street was a commercial painter of signs in addition to portraits.

"I've never seen anything like these portraits," he said. "The idea of a pair of African American sitters from 1841 in Philadelphia is unheard of. It is rare, rare, rare. Point Two is the lineage of this family, which traces back to Humphrey Morrey, the first mayor of the city.

"The idea of a family with that history, the idea of an African American family with that history, is extraordinary."