Free Garçon of color with a book, by Andrew LaMar Hopkins
I have been planing a visit to my beloved New Orleans for the past few weeks.
Getting in the sprit I have had energy to paint. I have been working on some
Historical New Orleans scenes and I will share with you today one that I have
completed. Titled "Free Garçon of color with a book" the painting depicts a
1830's Creole interior scene with a fashionably dressed Free boy of color.
Before I describe the elements of architecture and decoration of this
interior I will talk about "The Free people of color" A free person of color in
the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or
partial African descent who was not enslaved during the time of slavery. In the
United States, such persons were referred to as "free Negroes," though many were
of mixed race (in the terminology of the day, mulattos, generally of mix
European and African descent.
Free people of color was especially a term
used in Antebellum New Orleans and the former Louisiana Territory, where a
substantial third class of primarily mixed-race, free people developed. There
were also free people of color living on the American East Coast, other parts of
the South and in the Caribbean and Latin American slave societies. There
colonial societies classified mixed-race people in a variety of ways, generally
related to appearance and to the proportion of African ancestry.
A free boy of color with his puppy is fashionably dressed in the French Romantic style of the
1830's. In the 1830's, men and boys wore dark belted knee-length tunics or
coats, and light colored trousers.
The largest group of Free people of color lived in Antebellum Louisiana. Free
people of color, or gens de couleur libre, played an important role in the
history of New Orleans and the southern part of the state, as well as the former
Louisiana Territory. When French settlers and traders first arrived in the
colony, the men took Native American women as their concubines or common-law
wives; and when African slaves were imported to the colony, they took African
women as wives.
As the colony grew and more white women arrived from
France and Germany, some French men or ethnic French Creoles still took
mixed-race women as mistresses or placées and sometimes set up households with
Free women of color before they officially married into white society. In the
period of French and Spanish rule, the free people of color had developed formal
arrangements for placées, which the young women's mothers negotiated, often to
include a kind of dowry or property transfer to the young women, freedom for
them and their children, and education for the children. The French Creole men
often paid for education of their "natural" (illegitimate) mixed-race children
from these relationships, especially if they were sons, sometimes sending them
off to Paris to be educated.
A free boy of color with his puppy is fashionably dressed in the French Romantic style of the
1830's. In the 1830's, men and boys wore dark belted knee-length tunics or
coats, and light colored trousers.
Free people of color developed as a separate class between the colonial French
and Spanish and the enslaved black African workers. They often achieved
education and some measure of wealth; they spoke French and practiced
Catholicism, although there was also development of syncretic religion. At one
time the center of their residential community was the French Quarter. Many were
skilled artisans who owned property and their own businesses. They formed a
social category distinct from both whites and slaves.
Free people of
color were also an important part of the history of the Caribbean during the
period of slavery and afterward. Again as the descendants of French men and
African slaves, they achieved wealth and power, particularly in the French
colony of Saint-Domingue. It achieved independence as Haiti in 1804. In
Saint-Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and other French Caribbean colonies
before slavery was abolished, the free people of color were known as gens de
couleur libres, and affranchis. They were also an important part of the
populations of British Jamaica, the Spanish Captaincy General of Santo Domingo,
Cuba and Puerto Rico, and Portuguese Brazil.
The main subject of the
painting shows a free boy of color of mixed racial parentage holding a book.
19th century portraits showing the subject holding a book meant that the person
could read. He is fashionably dressed in the French Romantic style of the
1830's. In the 1830's, men and boys wore dark belted knee-length tunics or
coats, and light colored trousers.
A 18th century Creole fireplace with a wrap around mantle and upper Trumeau
The focal point of the room shows a Creole fireplace. Although Louisiana has
tropical weather most of the year some winters can become a little chilly. Most
homes built during the 18th and 19th century had fireplaces in just about every
room. Creole homes had Creole mantelpieces like in this case. They are called
wrap around mantles. The sides of the mantel extend and wrap the chimney breast.
The ornate wooden part above the mantle is referred to as a Trumeau on 18th and
early 19th century Louisiana inventory's. In 18th century France a Trumeau was a
decorative wooden panel above a mantel that incorporated a mirror and decorative
painting.
In Louisiana a Trumeau was just decorative paneling above a
mantle where one might place a mirror and painting on top of the molding.
Mirrors or painting were usually not incorporated into the piece like in French
Trumeau's. Some of the finer homes of Louisiana and New Orleans had the upper
mantle Trumeau included into the rooms.
The Architectural features of
the room date from the late 18th century and are in a early Neoclassical Louis
XVI style but characteristic of Louisiana. This style of interior decoration
continued well into the 19th century. The painted mantel and Trumeau are Louis
XVI in style and have carved and applied ornamentation such as the medallions,
Ionic pilasters, festoons and the lozenge shape were very popular designs in
late 18th century Louisiana architecture. The room has a very plan molded
chair-rail molding and the baseboards are marbleized. The floors are bare wide
cypress boards.
Rugs were not popular in Louisiana because of the
tropical climate they did not fair well and deteriorate fast in the humid
weather. Plus wool rugs were hot to walk on most of the year in the tropical
Louisiana weather. Grass/straw matting was much cooler and was used more then
rugs during this time.
The sides of the mantel extend and wrap the chimney breast.
The painted mantel and Trumeau are Louis XVI in style and have carved and
applied ornamentation such as the medallions, Ionic pilasters, festoons and the
lozenge shape were very popular designs in late 18th century Louisiana
architecture.
We know much about Louisiana interiors of the 18th and first half of the 19th
century due to inventory's. In French and Spanish Louisiana and even after
America bought Louisiana extensive postmortem household inventories, were
required by law in France and French Louisiana. Theses inventories give us a
sense of how homes of many classes of people living in Louisiana were furnished.
Where furniture was placed, wood's and fabrics used. And even description if
something was old, very old are new at the time the inventory was made.
Architecture and decoration are powerful ways of expressing one's
identity, The Free people of color of Louisiana were architects, builders,
furniture makers, cabinetmakers & iron smiths. Things can tell us about the
lives and lifestyles of there owners. We know from 18th & 19th c
inventory's that Louisianans love to keep and mix old furnishing and decorative
arts with newer items in a room. Ancestry meant every thing in Louisiana back
then as it does today. Having a 50 year old armoire handed down from your
grandmother was cherished just as much as a newer piece of furniture. Rooms
were furnished with fine French style local made furniture as well as with
imported pieces from Europe, as is the case with this room.
A 1820's mahogany Louisiana armoire with beehive turned legs.
Louisiana
Colonial architecture is simple but elegant and sometimes understated on the
outside. 18th & 19th century visitors wrote that some exteriors of building
were not that impressive, but the interiors could be luxuriously furnished,
painted and decorated. My painting shows two pieces of Louisiana furniture, to
the left a circa 1750-90 elegant cherry cabriole leg Louis XV style table copied
from a 18th century table I have in my collection. Tables like this were
multifunctional and could be used for display as in the painting, games like
playing cards, tea or as a occasional table. To the right of the painting is a
1820's mahogany armoire with beehive turned legs. Armoires were popular pieces
of furniture in Louisiana with homes having no closets, armoires could be used
in just about every room of a Louisiana house for storage. This armoire show
some American influence that came into Louisiana furniture after the 1803
purchase of Louisiana. The "beehive" shaped leg was wall known on the East
Coast but in Louisiana it is bolder in form. The decorative arts in the room are
a mixture of the old and newer items. Over the mantel on the lower part of the
Trumeau is a gilt bronze French wall clock in the Neoclassical Louis XVI style
circa 1775.
A circa 1750-90 elegant cherry cabriole leg Louis XV style table copied from a
18th century table I have in my collection.
On the top part of the Trumeau is a Old Master copy of St. Rose of Lima by
Carlo Dolci. Creole's were Catholic and displayed religious artifacts and
art in there homes. Copy's of famous paintings like this were made in Louisiana
and also came from artist in Colonial Mexico. Saint Rose of Lima, (April 20,
1586 – August 24, 1617), was the first Catholic saint native to the Americas,
She was born in Lima, Peru. On the cabriole leg table is a French Empire Old
Paris porcelain vase of garden flowers and a glass fish bowl with goldfish.
People in the 18th and 19th century had pet's like fish and puppy's just as we
do today. Over the cabriole leg table is a 18th century Neoclassical French
Gesso And Giltwood Barometer. On the mantel are five porcelain cups, (one behind
the boy's head) lined up in the French manner awaiting guest. On the ends of
the mantel are a pair of English Regency patinated bronze argand lamps in the
shape of Rhytons. The design of these lamps, like many Classical Argand lamps,
were inspired by ancient Greek and Roman urns and bronze vessels. The work of
Giovanni Battista Piranesi was a rich source of inspiration for early
19th-century designers currying to the tastes of a populace fascinated with
ancient cultures and focused on the electrifying, on-going archaeological
discoveries in Southern Italy.
On the ends of the mantel are a pair of English Regency patinated bronze argand
lamps in the shape of Rhytons.
Geneva-born philosopher and inventor Francois-Pierre-Ami Argand
(1750-1803), finally received a British patent for his lamps developed a few
years earlier in Paris on March 15th, 1784 (patent no. 1425). His invention
which promised "a lamp that is so constructed to produce neither smoke nor
smell, and to give considerably more light than any lamp hitherto known"
consisted of a tubular wick held between metal tubes, a rack and pinion wick
riser assembly and a tall, narrow chimney that fit closely around the wick
causing air to be drawn up through the center of the flame as well as around its
outside creating more thorough combustion. It was designed to burn rape-seed
(colza) and whale oil issuing from an oil reserve or “font” positioned so that
the oil would flow from the force of gravity to the burner. Hailed by Rees in
his encyclopedia of 1819 The Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and
Literature saying "it may be justly ranked among the greatest discoveries of the
age" and by Benjamin Franklin who noted it was "much admired for its splendor,"
Argand's invention was the most important advancement in home lighting since the
discovery of fire.
Free Garçon of color with a book, by Andrew LaMar Hopkins
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