THE PROOF IS IN THE PORTRAIT: A Close Look at a Portrait of a Free Black Woman from Antebellum Philadelphia

by lucia olubunmi r . momoh Constance E. Clayton Curatorial Fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Should you explore the Early American galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you will eventually come across a portrait of a free Black woman painted in Philadelphia before the Civil War. The only known surviving signed work by the Philadelphia-based painter Franklin R. Street (c. 1816–1882), Portrait of Elizabeth Brown Montier (c. 1822–1852) (Figure 1) was likely created in the artist’s studio on Chestnut Street. Dated to December 1840, months before the young sitter would wed local shoemaker Hiram Montier (c. 1818–1905), the painting resembles a traditional wedding portrait, a portrait painted immediately before one’s wedding. In the 1990s, one of Elizabeth’s descendants discovered her portrait along with the slightly larger one of Hiram (Fig. 2) underneath the bed of a family member. While a significant discovery, both were in very poor condition, and the family had the paintings conserved in 2006. Deciding their family’s history needed to be shared, descendant William Pickens lent the pair to the PMA, where they are now displayed together in gallery 108.

Elizabeth’s portrait reveals both the social standing and ambitions of a young bride-to-be. Dressed in the latest fashion, she sits upright while resting her arm on the scroll end of a carved wooden seat that is placed before rich emerald and scarlet draperies. The draperies cast their shadows upon a neoclassical column separating the serene space in which our sitter resides from a lush and volatile landscape covered in dark storm clouds. She wears what was possibly her wedding dress, a billowy ivory gown featuring a wide, lace-trimmed neckline and long, puffy sleeves accented with layered ruffles and cinched wrists. Adorned with gold rings and a necklace featuring a cross charm topped with a heart charm, she holds in her right hand a little book, and in her left she grasps a silk, rosecolored sash that drapes around both her shoulders, bringing out a slight flush in her cheeks. Framed by full arched brows, her large brown eyes engage us. Her gaze, a potential window into her soul, leads me to wonder, “Just who was Elizabeth Brown Montier?”

As many a Black scholar has lamented, it remains difficult to locate documents detailing the intimate thoughts, hopes, and dreams of Black women during the era of slavery. Because, in many states and territories, it became illegal to teach Black people to read and write, scant writings by free, freed, or enslaved Black women from the era of slavery exist today. What little survives—such as the poetry of Phillis Wheatly (see, Fig. 3) or the narrative of Harriet Jacobs—offers us a glance into the psyche of a few women, though far from comprehensive. Furthermore, official records documenting history are both patriarchal and racially prejudicial in nature and thus rarely recorded the words of Black women. For example, in many states Black people (both free or enslaved) were not permitted to testify in courts of law, and in early census records recorders listed data for entire families under the name of their patriarch.

What little we know about Elizabeth Brown Montier comes from a single line in an 1850 census record and a possible burial record from the now-defunct Lebanon Cemetery date to 1852.1 The census notes that Elizabeth—a mother of two boys at the time: Adrian (b. 1842) and Joseph (b. 1848)—was born around 1822 in Maryland, making her about 18 in December 1840 when she sat

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On for Street, and just 30 years young when she passed in 1852.2 With no birth certificate, baptismal, or manumission records yet to be located, her life before she met and married Hiram Montier remains a mystery.3 However, as art historian and curator Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw noted in the catalogue for Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century, images of the self provide precious information about the status and aspirations of their sitters, their place within the dominant hierarchy, and their anticipated or imagined potential for movement beyond it.4

Portraits, according to Shaw, operate as purveyors of knowledge about African American history. Thus, information can be gleaned from Elizabeth’s portrait that is not readily available to us via spotty archival sources. A deeper reading of the painting thus enriches our understanding of a woman about whom little is ultimately known.

In the portrait of Elizabeth, painter Franklin R. Street employed a mixture of real and imagined elements to capture the character of his young sitter and commemorate an important life event. While there is no way of knowing which items Elizabeth owned and which Street imagined for her, I would like to cautiously speculate that what Elizabeth touches, she possessed. This would include her jewelry, sash, book, and her dress. What she did not own was borrowed or imagined with a purpose. For example, the seat in which Elizabeth rests may have been a prop from the painter’s studio; the four-petaled floral motif on the end of the carved scroll arm could signify the young bride’s purity and fertility—a woman’s pride and promise, so to speak, at this time—as well as her impending union.

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Meanwhile, Franklin Street likely fabricated the dramatic drapery and classical columns behind Elizabeth as references to antiquity, a visual culture tradition that dates to aristocratic portraiture in England that Americans adopted to establish their high-class aspirations.

Street invented the turbulent weather in the distance. Featuring sunlight cutting through dark storm clouds, it could signify the hope for brighter days ahead. It is worth noting that the 1830s, part of the Jacksonian Era, saw a nation-wide increase in violence enacted against Black residents. In Philadelphia, angry mobs attacked free Black people in the streets and set fire to Black churches and residences. As Emma Jones Lapsansky demonstrated, these incidences especially targeted affluent members of the Black community, such as the Montiers.5 In spite of their free status and their location in a free city, the actions of many white residents reminded them of the precarious nature of all they possessed. Meanwhile, the limited number of surviving portraits of Black sitters speaks to the impact of this violence. It is possible that Elizabeth and her family hoped her wedding would mark a new period of peace and prosperity for the young free Black couple—a bright light signaling the end of a volatile storm. Challenging the racist notions of many, the portrait’s setting positions Elizabeth as a woman with means, character, and potential, while her possessions potentially reveal her sentiments, tastes, and accomplishments.

Street took time to render Elizabeth’s jewelry with enough detail that the items stand out as unique, signifying that her rings and necklace were likely personal pieces brought to the studio. The top ring featured on her right hand appears to be floral in form. The repeated presence of flower patterns in the young bride’s portrait further emphasized her feminine qualities and virtues. Additionally, her necklace appears to be composed of two overlapping charms, a heart and a cross. The position of the heart overlapping the upper section of the cross is almost an inverted reference to the Catholic Sacred Heart (see, Fig. 4); however, with the heart’s position in relation to the plain cross also recalls the Egyptian Ankh symbol (see, Fig. 5). Often referred to as the Key of Life or Key of the Nile, the Ankh is an ancient form—from which it is said the cruciform derived—that signifies eternal life. In Elizabeth’s necklace the top of the key (normally a reverse teardrop) has been replaced with a heart tilted slightly off-center. Could it be that the positioning of Elizabeth’s necklace fuses African and Christian symbols to convey eternal love and devotion for her groom? This possibility becomes all the more attractive when considering that Elizabeth was to marry a young man presumed to be of Haitian descent via his patriarchal line. Vodou, the prominent religion in Haiti, is a fusion of different African religions whose followers utilized Catholic iconography to conceal spiritual emblems.6 Of course, it is also possible that Elizabeth simply found the heart-shaped emblem endearing; however, because so much of this portrait adheres to European-American standards of beauty and respectability, I am tempted to search for African-rooted influences. Regardless, the necklace Elizabeth wears represents a unique and charming addition to her portrait that speaks to the young lady’s faith.

Likewise, her dress, an elegant ivory ensemble, tells us that Elizabeth kept up with the latest fashion trends coming out of Europe, as the design mimics the dress worn by Queen Victoria (Fig. 6) at her wedding to Prince Albert earlier that year.7 Prior to Queen Victoria’s wedding, most women simply wore their best dress of any color at their wedding. However, the young monarch’s wedding dress—a voluminous ivory-colored gown with a corseted bodice featuring an off-the-shoulder neckline trimmed with lace—ignited the tradition of brides wearing white (or, in this case, more of an ivory) on one’s wedding day. Not necessarily associated with purity, (off)white fabric, because it has always been difficult to keep clean, instead established the affluence of the wearer. A similar dress (see, Fig. 7) in the museum’s collection worn as a wedding dress in Philadelphia in 1841 speaks to the popularity of this style in the region. Additionally, in their time, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert represented the public’s ideal of domestic bliss; thus, in emulating their actions and tastes people also demonstrated a want for loving unions.

Finally, the book held within Elizabeth’s right hand tells us that in addition to being affluent, sweet, and fashionable, she was also literate. In many states it was illegal for enslaved people to learn to read and write, as enslavers understood how dangerous access to information could be. Thus, education remained especially important for free Black individuals as a marker of liberty. Demonstrating one’s wealth of knowledge clearly informed Hiram’s portrait, in which the young bootmaker chose to be depicted with the Holy Bible and a book titled History of the World, along with two unlabeled books, possibly a business ledger and personal journal—each item indicating aspects of a well-rounded education. Other portraits demonstrate that Black people emphasized literacy when able, as seen in William Matthew Prior’s (1806–1873) Portrait of Mrs. Nancy Lawson (1810–1854) (Fig. 8). Seated before a window covered in scarlet drapery, Nancy Lawson wears a conservative dark green dress with a white embroidered collar and bonnet. She holds in her right hand a small leather-bound volume, potentially a prayer book, into which she’s placed her thumb, as if holding her spot so that she can return to her studies after engaging us for a brief moment. Both living in free states, Nancy Lawson and Elizabeth Brown utilized their portraits to further emphasize the significance of education—as precious as the portraits that depict them.

Knowing the challenges Elizabeth Brown faced as a young Black woman in Philadelphia, the fact that she was able to commission her portrait and that it survives is remarkable. While a number of questions remain unanswered, this portrait of the soon-to-be Mrs. Montier reveals a great deal about the youthful ambitions of a free Black woman, who was living—and seemingly thriving—in Philadelphia during the antebellum era.

Notes

1 A record from the city’s archives dated to 1852 notes the death and burial of an “Elizabeth A. Montier” at Lebanon Cemetery. Lebanon was established in 1849 in South Philadelphia and was one of the first African American burial grounds. It closed in 1908 and all those interned there were purportedly moved to Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, PA. However, neither the online burial records for Lebanon and Eden note the burial of an Elizabeth Montier. Moreover, the author has yet to locate a record that notes Elizabeth’s middle name to confirm that this Elizabeth A. Montier is the same Elizabeth Brown Montier who married Hiram Montier in 1841. “Elizabeth A. Montier,” in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates Index, 1803–1915. Access via Ancestry.com on August 11, 2022.

2 “Elizabeth A. Montier,” in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates Index, 1803–1915.

3 Manumission was the process by which enslaved people purchased or were granted their freedom. Had Elizabeth been born into slavery, this record would tell us how she was freed and from whom. It is possible that, like her husband, Elizabeth had been born free. In which case, she would have carried freedom papers to prevent capture or imprisonment. Other records, such as a baptismal record, would likely provide us with the names of her mother and father as well as her godparents, giving us a sense of who made up her community.

4 Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw and Emily K. Shubert, Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century (Andover, Mass.: Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), 27.

5 For more information on the rise of race-based violence in Philadelphia in the 1830s, see Emma Jones Lapsansky, “‘Since They Got Those Separate Churches’: Afro-Americans and Racism in Jacksonian Philadelphia,” American Quarterly 32, no. 1 (1980), 54–78.

6 It should be noted that this this syncretic practice is more prevalent with Santería, or Lukumí, in Cuba and Candomblé in Brazil than in Haitian Vodou, which has a more prominent African influence. For more information on these differences and on Haitian Vodou, see Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, “Broken Mirrors: Mythos, Memories, and National History,” in Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2006),

7. For more information on the evolution of the tradition of the wedding dress across time and place, see Summer Brennan, “A Natural History of the Wedding Dress,” JStor Daily published September 27, 2017 https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-thewedding-dress/