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Portfolios%20%3D%20%22593%22%20and%20Sort_Artist%20%3D%20%22American%20artist%22
Painting
Colonel Nathaniel Rochester
American artist, (active )
American artist
United States
Primary
Audubon, John James
United States
1785 - 1851
Male
Previous attribution
Previously attributed to
30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
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approximate installation dimensions
frame
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without frame
Oil
Oil
before 1831
1821
1830
1800-1900, 19th century, from Rochester collections, men, New York State & Local History, paintings, portraits
Painting
Long celebrated as our city’s founder, Nathaniel Rochester (1752–1831) was recently discovered to have bought and sold enslaved people while he lived in Maryland. Not only did Rochester buy and sell enslaved people in the South as a business venture, he continued to own and profit from the labor of enslaved individuals after moving north. In fact, he did so until New York State law made it impossible for him to continue in 1827. This information makes evident how insidious and enmeshed slavery was in the business life of the early nineteenth century, even in the northern states.
Many decades before Kodak gave us the snapshot, a portrait such as this one was a way for a privileged, white person of this period to capture their likeness for posterity. In comparison, the enslaved Black men, women, and children of Rochester’s household did not have their portraits painted. Their names, likenesses, and personal stories went largely unrecorded and most have not survived history—another example of the dehumanization of enslaved individuals during this period of American history.
[Gallery label text, 2021]
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1934.1
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Memorial Art Gallery
9/8/1999
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Memorial Art Gallery
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7/10/2000
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