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The Story of Bélizaire, Pt. 2: Provenance
76 Plays3 years ago
In 1837 a family group that flew in the face of convention was committed to canvas, presumably by portraitist Jacques Guillame Lucien Amans. It showed four children. Three were white, dressed in their Sunday best and gazing placidly at the viewer. The fourth, standing behind them in a Brooks Brothers livery coat, was a Black teenager. This is Bélizaire, and at some point around the turn of the twentieth century—for reasons unknown—his portrait was covered up.
Last week we took a close look at Bélizaire the person, and his tortured life-path through antebellum Louisiana society. This week we examine the painting that is the reason anyone knows Bélizaire’s name, and follow the twists and turns by which it traveled from the studio of Jacques Amans in 1837 to the collection of Jeremy Simien, where it is today.
This is Pt. 2 of our three-part series on the painting "Bélizaire and the Frey Children." Feat. Simien and Wendy Castenell, as well as Taylor Thistlethwaite of Thistlethwaite Americana. Hosted by Benjamin Miller.
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Transcript
Introduction to Belazare's Story
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects.
00:00:04
Speaker
In 1837, an enslaved teenage boy named Belazare was included in a painting of his white owner's children.
00:00:13
Speaker
This year is the 200th anniversary of his birth.
00:00:18
Speaker
Last time on Curious Objects, we tried to learn and understand what we could about Belazare's life, who this person was, and to the degree we can ever notice what kind of life he experienced.
00:00:33
Speaker
But everything we know about Belisere's life is just the beginning of the story of this painting.
00:00:39
Speaker
It's been 185 years since it was painted, and, well, it's been a long two centuries.
00:00:46
Speaker
The fact that it was rediscovered at all could be reasonably described as a miracle.
00:01:01
Speaker
For the Magazine Antiques, I'm Ben Miller.
00:01:08
Speaker
But luckily, we had some major breaks in finding information on that.
00:01:17
Speaker
What is completely shocking were a number of things that occurred that they weren't just
00:01:28
Speaker
They weren't coincidences.
00:01:30
Speaker
It's like they were meant to happen.
00:01:32
Speaker
I keep saying that, and I know it sounds foolish to sound superstitious, but the way these things happen, there's no way that's just happened.
00:01:41
Speaker
It's almost as if, you know, if I were a superstitious person from Louisiana, I would say the ancestors were guiding us.
00:01:51
Speaker
So, you know.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, I know that feeling.
00:01:55
Speaker
You know, and it's the same thing I talked about earlier with kind of this law of attraction.
00:01:59
Speaker
I think if you set your mind to something and you really, it stays in your mind, I think, you know, I think things have a way of finding you and you find them.
00:02:11
Speaker
And sometimes you think you're finding them, but you find yourself in them.
00:02:16
Speaker
You know, I think that's one of the thrills of collecting.
Ownership and Social Insights
00:02:19
Speaker
That's Jeremy Simeon.
00:02:21
Speaker
Spoiler alert, Jeremy is the current owner of this painting.
00:02:25
Speaker
That's how the story ends for now.
00:02:28
Speaker
But the story of how it wound its way to him is every bit as revealing of society, of history, as the story of Belisere himself.
00:02:44
Speaker
So let's go back to the beginning.
00:02:48
Speaker
to the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1837, to a prosperous slave-owning household, to the Frey family and its patriarch, Frederick Frey, to his children, Elizabeth, Lantine, and Frederick Jr., to the enslaved teenager named Belazare and his mother, Sally.
00:03:09
Speaker
Let's go back to the forest, the swamp, the bayou that makes the backdrop for this extraordinary painting.
Exploring Belazare's Parentage
00:03:23
Speaker
Let's go back to the morning.
00:03:27
Speaker
Or maybe it was an afternoon.
00:03:29
Speaker
Was it spring or summer?
00:03:31
Speaker
Let's say it was a cool spring morning.
00:03:38
Speaker
And there they are, the three Frey children and the boy without a surname, Belazer.
00:03:44
Speaker
The boy who, as a six-year-old, had been sold as property into this Frey family.
00:03:51
Speaker
who was described in that transaction matter-of-factly as Mulatto, whose father was... we don't know who.
00:04:01
Speaker
Did Belisar know?
00:04:03
Speaker
Did he suspect?
00:04:06
Speaker
Was it another enslaved man?
00:04:09
Speaker
Or was it a white man?
00:04:12
Speaker
Was it a friend of his mother's?
00:04:15
Speaker
Or an abuser?
00:04:17
Speaker
Was it Frederick Frey himself?
00:04:22
Speaker
Was that question in Belazaire's mind, that cool spring morning, as he stood alongside those other three children posing, taking directions from the artist, trying his best to stand still, struggling not to fidget, glad to be wearing that beautiful tan overcoat, even if it was a kind of uniform, mindful of what his owner, Frederick, had told him, that this was important.
00:04:50
Speaker
That this man wasn't just any artist, this was a great French painter, newly arrived in New Orleans, and that it was an honor to be painted by him.
Artistic Attribution and Style
00:05:16
Speaker
We've already spent an entire episode talking about this painting, and I haven't even told you yet who painted it.
00:05:24
Speaker
And how do we know it was painted in 1837, anyway?
00:05:28
Speaker
We do know that two of the Frey children died in 1837.
00:05:33
Speaker
But the painting itself isn't signed or dated.
00:05:38
Speaker
One artist whose name keeps coming up is a Frenchman, Jacques-Guillaume Lucien Amann.
00:05:44
Speaker
Here's Wendy Castanel.
00:05:46
Speaker
You heard from her last episode.
00:05:48
Speaker
I've heard that Jacques Amon might have been the artist.
00:05:51
Speaker
And if that is the case, then that would certainly be consistent with the quality of the work because he was trained in the French Academy.
00:06:03
Speaker
And so he has that kind of near classical cachet along with a lot of the other French immigrant painters who came to Louisiana during this period.
00:06:14
Speaker
I'm familiar with Louisiana portraits.
00:06:17
Speaker
Kind of an understatement.
00:06:20
Speaker
I know who was working at the time period.
00:06:22
Speaker
We have a very tight window.
00:06:24
Speaker
Amal arrived in Louisiana about 1836.
00:06:27
Speaker
That's when we start seeing his first signed works.
00:06:30
Speaker
Okay, we know that there's this period by 1837, two of the sitters could not be.
00:06:38
Speaker
Depicted, unless it was posthumous, and then I think we would see evidence if that were the case.
00:06:47
Speaker
So when we look at who's in Louisiana at that time period, and we consider the other artists, maybe a John Joseph Voduchamp, some people have said Franz Fleischbein, but it's not Franz Fleischbein, it's not John Joseph Voduchamp.
00:07:05
Speaker
You don't have to take my word for it.
00:07:07
Speaker
I can tell you have five Photoshop, which I love.
00:07:10
Speaker
And I would love for it to be by John Joseph Photoshop.
00:07:13
Speaker
He's the first painter I loved as far as Louisiana portraits.
00:07:17
Speaker
And it was the first ones I added to the collection.
00:07:19
Speaker
We bought two at auction.
00:07:21
Speaker
Franz Fleischbein, I would love for this to be number 28 of the known Franz Fleischbeins.
00:07:27
Speaker
And it would be so great.
00:07:30
Speaker
Franz Fleischbein could not paint this.
00:07:33
Speaker
He couldn't.
00:07:35
Speaker
He wouldn't have the ability to do this.
00:07:37
Speaker
When we look at certain aspects of the way the sitters are posed, I call this the suspended hand, especially Frederick Jr. It's a dead ringer for known Amon paintings.
00:07:53
Speaker
Okay, the pose of the little girl.
00:07:55
Speaker
That's another dead ringer of another painting of Amon.
00:08:00
Speaker
And some people say, well, it doesn't feel as finished as an Amon painting.
00:08:04
Speaker
Well, Amon worked from 1836 to 1856, and there's quite a bit of spread between that.
00:08:09
Speaker
And there's some inconsistency.
00:08:11
Speaker
In the early paintings, there's not as much modeling and glazing,
Erasure and Persistence of Memory
00:08:16
Speaker
and this falls right in there.
00:08:17
Speaker
But ignore all that.
00:08:19
Speaker
Let's just throw all that out.
00:08:21
Speaker
This guy thinks it's by Amon.
00:08:24
Speaker
The only other painting that descended in the family that was also donated at the same time is signed, Jacques Amon.
00:08:37
Speaker
I don't know, dear listener, if that's enough to persuade you, but I'm pretty well convinced.
00:08:42
Speaker
Hence the cool spring day in 1837 and Belazere listening to a Frenchman chiding him and the other children to arrête de bouger.
00:08:59
Speaker
One thing that's absolutely certain is that this is, by the standards of 19th century Louisiana portraiture,
00:09:05
Speaker
a fantastic painting.
00:09:08
Speaker
Jacquemont really knocked it out of the park.
00:09:11
Speaker
This portrait is amazing in terms of its skill and composition and the quality of the painting.
00:09:21
Speaker
It's clearly done by a formally trained artist.
00:09:25
Speaker
The proportions, the care of the clothes and facial features and the composition and arrangement itself, the combination of the landscape
00:09:38
Speaker
And the group portrait all marked this as being done by a highly skilled painter who has had a lot of experience with portraiture and with landscape and who has trained.
00:09:54
Speaker
It's not done by a limner.
00:09:56
Speaker
It is such good quality.
00:09:59
Speaker
From the moment Amand brushed his final brushstroke onto this canvas, up until 1972, the painting is a ghost.
00:10:08
Speaker
There are no records, no photographs, no catalogs, no probate documents.
00:10:13
Speaker
For 135 years, we're left to speculate.
00:10:18
Speaker
There are just two things we know for sure.
00:10:21
Speaker
First, it stayed in the family.
00:10:24
Speaker
When the painting did emerge in 1972, it was in the possession of Frederick Frey's great-great-granddaughter, Audrey Grasser.
00:10:34
Speaker
And second, at some point in that period, Bella's heir was erased.
00:10:40
Speaker
because the painting that emerged in 1972 was a portrait of the three Frey children and no one else.
00:10:48
Speaker
So the painting was donated to the New Orleans Museum of Art in 1972.
00:10:54
Speaker
And there was the Times-Picayune article, actually, that I would discover in 2022, or 2021, really, where the person who donated it, which was Mrs. Audrey Grasser,
00:11:11
Speaker
They wrote an article about a Mrs. Audrey Grasser donating two paintings to the New Orleans Museum of Art.
00:11:17
Speaker
One of them was the painting of the Frey children and Belisere.
00:11:22
Speaker
Of course, Belisere was covered up, though ghosting through.
00:11:26
Speaker
And the other was a portrait painting of a lady.
00:11:31
Speaker
who we've also figured out the identity of her.
00:11:36
Speaker
And in any event, the article talks about how these large... It essentially was kind of like one of these articles like, oh, these large paintings are so hard to fit in modern homes, 1970s homes, and museums are great places for these.
00:11:51
Speaker
And this is a perfect thing to do if you find yourself in this situation.
00:11:57
Speaker
But what was fascinating about the article is that they noted that there was a figure ghosting through, and Mrs. Grasser said that that was an enslaved person who was a playmate of the children.
00:12:13
Speaker
It's really interesting because she had no clue who the children were, but she remembered the story of an enslaved person being painted out after making the master upset.
00:12:24
Speaker
And they actually noted in the article that with conservation or restoration, this figure could be brought back into the composition.
00:12:38
Speaker
I want to pause here and just point out the irony that one of Audrey Grasser's ancestors had gone to great trouble to erase the memory of Belazare from this family portrait, only to have Audrey herself still talking about him in 1972.
00:12:55
Speaker
Of course, she had forgotten his name, or never knew it to begin with, but it's clear that Belazer never really left that family.
00:13:04
Speaker
That despite selling him off to Evergreen Plantation on Christmas Eve of 1856, despite defacing the masterpiece family heirloom by painting over him, they never quite managed to purge Belazer, even from their own memories.
00:13:26
Speaker
Now, at this point, you might be scratching your head.
00:13:29
Speaker
If this painting was donated to a major museum in 1972, 50 years ago, and a newspaper article at that time about that very donation mentioned the existence of a painted-over figure and the family story of an enslaved boy, how on earth did it take until last year for Belisere's story to come to light?
00:13:55
Speaker
That is a complicated question, and I think I want to get at it by working backwards.
00:14:02
Speaker
See, Jeremy's known about this painting for a long time.
00:14:05
Speaker
He'd seen references here and there, but it was just last year that he made a wildly serendipitous connection.
00:14:12
Speaker
It wouldn't be until the end of 2021.
00:14:17
Speaker
When I would get a huge break with this painting.
00:14:20
Speaker
I shared this painting multiple times.
00:14:22
Speaker
I shared it on more than one platform, Facebook, Instagram, talked about how amazing it was, you know, participated in all these forums on Louisiana history, and then on my private, you know, Instagram and Facebook, I shared this painting.
00:14:38
Speaker
And, you know, the reaction for most people was, wow, this is incredible.
00:14:43
Speaker
Wow.
00:14:43
Speaker
Where is this?
00:14:44
Speaker
Where is this?
00:14:45
Speaker
I didn't I I wanted to know.
00:14:47
Speaker
And I just I didn't I had no way of finding out.
00:14:52
Speaker
Well, I shared it on Instagram.
00:14:56
Speaker
I think earlier in the year, 2021 or so, and I got a huge lead.
00:15:02
Speaker
A friend of mine said, oh, I remember that painting.
00:15:05
Speaker
I remember seeing it in a store like 10, 12 years ago.
00:15:08
Speaker
And I said, what?
00:15:10
Speaker
You saw this in a store 10 or 12 years ago?
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, in an antique shop.
00:15:14
Speaker
And I said, well, please tell me more.
00:15:16
Speaker
Tell me more.
00:15:17
Speaker
Now, I just want to state for the record that there are four words that are responsible for more breakthroughs in the world of antiques and art.
00:15:25
Speaker
than all the research that's ever been done those four words are i remember seeing that of all the paintings and sculptures and furniture and objects that you've looked at the ones you remember well there's probably a reason and there was definitely a reason to remember this one jeremy's friend who remembered seeing the painting
00:15:49
Speaker
You've actually heard him on Curious Objects before, too.
00:15:52
Speaker
He is a furniture dealer in Virginia named Taylor Thistlethwaite.
00:15:57
Speaker
So I first was exposed to Belazare in... I guess I was either in college or graduate school.
00:16:06
Speaker
It would have been...
00:16:08
Speaker
2000 probably let's say the early 2000s early 2000 teens and the painting actually showed up at a shop in Georgetown that I've been going to my whole life.
00:16:22
Speaker
And it was one of those paintings when you saw it stuck with you.
00:16:28
Speaker
And, you know, my dad just had made a transition in his career and couldn't purchase the painting and he desperately wanted it.
00:16:38
Speaker
But because it was just such a powerful painting and, you know, it was something
00:16:48
Speaker
even in conversations with my family, that was always kind of, oh God, I wonder what happened to that painting.
Investigation into the Painting's Past
00:16:55
Speaker
That was the one that got away and things like that.
00:17:00
Speaker
Was Bella's era
00:17:01
Speaker
still painted out at that point?
00:17:04
Speaker
No, he was not painted out at that point.
00:17:08
Speaker
He was in the painting.
00:17:10
Speaker
It had gone through an initial conservation that wasn't great, but it lets you know exactly, you know, Belazare was there.
00:17:20
Speaker
And I can tell you today, I walked in the shop and it was sitting over an Empire sideboard with a marble top and it just...
00:17:33
Speaker
I'm sure you have this story too, Ben.
00:17:37
Speaker
Whenever you see something, we look at thousands of objects all the time, but you always remember the ones that got away, and that was one that definitely got away.
00:17:47
Speaker
And the great thing about the painting was it just was such a commanding size, and it told really a great story.
00:17:59
Speaker
Fast forward a few years later, probably about two or three years ago, I'm sitting, you know, Jeremy, Sammy and I were actually friends on Instagram and we'd been in communication some, I wouldn't say we were big buddies or anything, but we became very, very close.
00:18:19
Speaker
And he posted that and I go, Oh, I remember seeing that painting in Georgetown.
00:18:25
Speaker
It, you know, it was the one that always got away.
00:18:29
Speaker
And, you know, I was able to tell him the dealer's name who had since left Georgetown.
00:18:36
Speaker
My heart's just pounding.
00:18:37
Speaker
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
00:18:39
Speaker
I'm like mistyping everything on Google.
00:18:41
Speaker
Thank God for autocorrect.
00:18:42
Speaker
Right.
00:18:43
Speaker
So it's so it brings up the shop and it's closed.
00:18:48
Speaker
It's it's closed, but it had actually moved.
00:18:51
Speaker
So I was able to do a couple of more, a couple, a couple of more searches.
00:18:55
Speaker
And I was able to find the guy.
00:18:57
Speaker
So, you know, me being impatient and, you know, we live in the world of now.
00:19:03
Speaker
Give me it.
00:19:04
Speaker
I want it delivered tomorrow through Amazon.
00:19:06
Speaker
I pick up the phone and I call.
00:19:08
Speaker
The guy doesn't answer, of course.
00:19:10
Speaker
So I sent several emails.
00:19:11
Speaker
I don't think he answered on the first, second or third email.
00:19:15
Speaker
But eventually I caught hold of him.
00:19:18
Speaker
And it was kind of like...
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah, I saw that painting 10, 12 years ago.
00:19:23
Speaker
What about it?
00:19:24
Speaker
It's kind of like, well, I really want to know more about this painting.
00:19:29
Speaker
I have to know more about this painting.
00:19:31
Speaker
And he's like, look, I already sold the painting.
00:19:33
Speaker
I mean, look, I have some other paintings.
00:19:35
Speaker
Do you want to see other paintings?
00:19:36
Speaker
Do you want a mirror?
00:19:38
Speaker
We talked about everything from mirrors to paintings.
00:19:41
Speaker
And I was being polite, and he was being polite with his time.
00:19:44
Speaker
I said, look, I really need to know more about that painting.
00:19:46
Speaker
Who'd you sell it to?
00:19:48
Speaker
And he's like, look, that was a long time ago.
00:19:51
Speaker
I've moved twice since then.
00:19:53
Speaker
I said, well, can you please try to find something on it?
00:19:56
Speaker
Can you try to find something?
00:19:58
Speaker
who you sold to two records, I'll let you know.
00:20:01
Speaker
I was like, okay.
00:20:03
Speaker
It wasn't very convincing.
00:20:05
Speaker
But I checked in a couple of more times.
00:20:08
Speaker
I was persistent, but I was polite.
00:20:12
Speaker
And a couple months later, I was like, hey, did you ever find that paperwork?
00:20:15
Speaker
No, I didn't.
00:20:16
Speaker
What do you want?
00:20:16
Speaker
Do you want one of these paintings I have now?
00:20:19
Speaker
No, no, I don't.
00:20:20
Speaker
Thank you.
00:20:21
Speaker
But please, if you find that paperwork, let me know.
00:20:26
Speaker
I mean, I wasn't sure this was going to happen.
00:20:29
Speaker
There was no certainty to this.
00:20:31
Speaker
And I try to maintain a level of optimism because I do believe in kind of the law of attraction when you're after something and thinking of something and you're persistent.
00:20:41
Speaker
I believe it can happen.
00:20:42
Speaker
But I didn't think it was going to happen like this.
00:20:45
Speaker
I think he called me on a Wednesday at 8 or 9 o'clock.
00:20:48
Speaker
And the baby had just gone to sleep and there was no way I was going to answer that phone call and make my wife mad and upset the baby.
00:20:58
Speaker
This would have been awful.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:03
Speaker
I let the phone in.
00:21:04
Speaker
I didn't realize it was him, honestly, so I just let it go.
00:21:07
Speaker
The next day, I wake up, probably at 5 o'clock or so, and I hear the message.
00:21:12
Speaker
He says, look, I found that paperwork.
00:21:14
Speaker
Give me a call.
00:21:16
Speaker
So naturally, I'm freaking out.
00:21:18
Speaker
I'm waiting.
00:21:20
Speaker
I call probably at 7 o'clock in the morning, impatient me.
00:21:23
Speaker
8 o'clock, he doesn't answer.
00:21:25
Speaker
9 o'clock, he doesn't answer.
00:21:26
Speaker
I'm compulsive.
00:21:27
Speaker
I kept calling.
00:21:29
Speaker
And I think I catch up with him a day or two later.
00:21:31
Speaker
I'm sure I'm having panic attacks over the next course of 48 and 72 hours.
00:21:36
Speaker
But eventually he tells me he found the paperwork.
00:21:40
Speaker
He went to know, well, so what are you after with this?
00:21:42
Speaker
I said, honestly, I just want to find out more about the painting.
00:21:46
Speaker
It's fascinated me since then.
00:21:48
Speaker
And he says, so who are you really, though?
00:21:50
Speaker
I mean, so I told you I collect paintings and this.
00:21:52
Speaker
And so I told him about me.
00:21:54
Speaker
I shared more about what I'm what I'm doing.
00:21:57
Speaker
I'm interested in representation.
00:21:59
Speaker
I'm interested in in material culture and paintings that show the the the presence of people of African descent in in the in this history.
00:22:10
Speaker
And so he said, OK, well, look, I'll reach out to the person.
00:22:14
Speaker
OK.
00:22:15
Speaker
So the guy calls me and says, look, I've been in contact with that customer I sold it to.
00:22:23
Speaker
They still have the painting.
00:22:24
Speaker
I said, well, that's good.
00:22:25
Speaker
That's great news.
00:22:25
Speaker
Can I get pictures?
00:22:26
Speaker
This is really what I was after.
00:22:27
Speaker
I was after pictures.
00:22:29
Speaker
And this kind of turned into, well, are you interested in the painting?
00:22:33
Speaker
I said, well, I'm interested in learning more about it.
00:22:38
Speaker
Long story short, and really doing the Cliff Notes version of this,
00:22:46
Speaker
He was able to talk to the owner of the painting and the owner pretty much said to me, they never felt like they really owned this painting.
00:22:58
Speaker
They always felt like it was kind of waiting for,
00:23:01
Speaker
for something they said when they retired they were hoping to do the research on it um and uh i said well listen this painting has fascinated me since 2013. uh and i've been looking for it really really looking for it since 2015.
00:23:17
Speaker
And we were able to talk about that, and we came to a deal.
00:23:22
Speaker
They thought it belonged back in, I won't say permanently back in Louisiana, but certainly back south.
00:23:33
Speaker
It was way up north.
00:23:34
Speaker
It was in Washington, D.C.
00:23:36
Speaker
It was not even in the south.
00:23:39
Speaker
And so we were able to work an agreement out, and I called Taylor Thistleway to get.
00:23:46
Speaker
I said, Taylor, you never believe it.
00:23:49
Speaker
I found that painting.
00:23:51
Speaker
I need you to pick it up.
00:23:53
Speaker
And he said, what?
00:23:55
Speaker
He's like, are you at, what do you mean?
00:23:57
Speaker
I was like, look, it's in Washington, D.C., man.
00:24:00
Speaker
This is too big for UPS.
00:24:02
Speaker
I can't just, you know, I can't go up there and do that.
00:24:05
Speaker
I mean, you don't love so far.
00:24:06
Speaker
He said, well, you'll never believe this, but I'm actually going to be in Washington, D.C.
00:24:10
Speaker
on Wednesday.
00:24:11
Speaker
I said, well, that's awesome.
00:24:12
Speaker
Can you please help me?
00:24:13
Speaker
And Taylor is a great guy and has a passion for antiques and, of course, is a
00:24:20
Speaker
a dealer of Americana.
00:24:22
Speaker
And he said, yeah, I'll do it for you.
00:24:24
Speaker
Jeremy made all the transactions and everything, but I went and picked it up and for him.
00:24:31
Speaker
And it actually lived in my house for about a week or two until we could get shipping arranged.
00:24:35
Speaker
And, you know, it was kind of like seeing an old friend again, because it's, it was that one thing you always dreamed about.
00:24:43
Speaker
So after the painting, you know, I think I got it photographed for him and,
00:24:50
Speaker
He had a lady do an all-night drive from New Orleans back down to him.
00:24:57
Speaker
And that's kind of the whole story of my connection with it.
00:25:02
Speaker
It was more just going, you know, when you're chasing down these trails, you know,
00:25:09
Speaker
all it takes is one string that can kind of unravel the whole thing.
00:25:12
Speaker
So I didn't play a major role by any means, but I was able to really help kind of find the painting again.
00:25:22
Speaker
And the exciting thing was, you know,
00:25:27
Speaker
do I wish I owned the painting?
00:25:29
Speaker
Do I wish it was hanging in my house in Kentucky?
00:25:31
Speaker
A hundred percent, but it took a great scholar like Jeremy and you know, he's a hell of a bloodhound and he to trace it down because as somebody who,
00:25:46
Speaker
you know, constantly looks at paintings in great Americana.
00:25:50
Speaker
It just, it tells a story unlike really any painting that I know of in an American context, you know, it's especially from that period.
00:26:00
Speaker
So I kind of feel like I got a brownie for, you know, helping out to put this painting in the light where it should and deserves to be seen.
00:26:15
Speaker
Now, the thing about curious objects is, tracking them down is only the beginning.
00:26:21
Speaker
It was only after Jeremy brought the painting back to Louisiana that the real work started.
00:26:26
Speaker
Because remember, at that point, no one knew Belisere's name.
00:26:31
Speaker
No one even knew for sure that this was the Frey family in the painting.
00:26:35
Speaker
So Jeremy started sleuthing with the help of researcher Katie Shannon.
00:26:42
Speaker
I had started doing the genealogy before I contacted a researcher.
00:26:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:50
Speaker
And I had come into this, just this, I could not get past this one person in the chart.
00:26:59
Speaker
And that's where I said, look, we got to figure this out because we did, we did know,
00:27:04
Speaker
who donated the painting.
00:27:07
Speaker
What we did not know is if this was a painting that he had acquired at auction five years before, or was this a family heirloom?
00:27:16
Speaker
So when I found the newspaper article that was dated, I believe 1972, that talks about the Grasser family donating these two paintings, that was the confirmation we needed.
00:27:29
Speaker
This did descend in their family in the maternal line.
00:27:33
Speaker
Here's some of the names.
00:27:35
Speaker
So along that process, Katie called me up one day and says, I really have a feeling it's this person.
00:27:46
Speaker
And I said, okay, well, what are your feelings based on?
00:27:51
Speaker
Well, there were very few domestics.
00:27:54
Speaker
Because this was urban slavery, the Frey family had very few domestic enslaved people.
00:28:01
Speaker
When I say very few, one is too many, but I'm trying to say this wasn't 50, this wasn't 20, this wasn't Versailles.
00:28:08
Speaker
We're talking about a handful.
00:28:10
Speaker
And then when we look at the gender and then we look at the age of
00:28:16
Speaker
could be only one person.
00:28:18
Speaker
No one else came close.
00:28:21
Speaker
So that's when the dominoes started to fall.
00:28:24
Speaker
When Jeremy started to understand who Belisere was and what kind of life he had led.
00:28:30
Speaker
The story we explored last episode.
00:28:33
Speaker
But there were still unanswered questions about those missing 135 years.
00:28:39
Speaker
Between that cool spring day with Belisere and the Frey Children and that time's picky interview with Audrey Grasser
00:28:47
Speaker
And there were even more unanswered questions about the 50 years since.
00:28:52
Speaker
And it seems like the answers to those questions might tell us a lot, not just about the painting, but the world it was passing through.
00:29:08
Speaker
Here's Wendy Castanel once more.
Cultural Significance and Museum's Role
00:29:11
Speaker
Personally, I think that this portrait is...
00:29:16
Speaker
kind of a perfect encapsulation of everything that I love about Louisiana history and Louisiana race relations and Louisiana visual culture.
00:29:29
Speaker
And this portrait is a very beautiful example of Louisiana portraiture and the richness of Louisiana history and culture that is available for us if we peel back a few layers and continue to do the research and do a little bit of digging.
00:29:45
Speaker
I love it.
00:29:46
Speaker
The first layer that had to be peeled back on this painting was the paint itself.
00:29:51
Speaker
Because when the painting left the storage room of the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2004, and we're going to talk about that in just a minute, Belisere was still painted over.
00:30:02
Speaker
By the time Taylor Thistlethwaite came across it, one round of conservation had already cleaned up the painting and revealed the figure of Belisere.
00:30:11
Speaker
But after Jeremy acquired the piece, he sent it to a conservator named Craig Crawford for a second, more intensive restoration.
00:30:19
Speaker
So when the painting came in, it was clear that the person had done a very good job.
00:30:30
Speaker
In fact, I even reached out to the person.
00:30:32
Speaker
I spoke to them.
00:30:35
Speaker
And it was an earnest job and they did a good job, but they were very, very careful and conservative.
00:30:43
Speaker
And it was apparent to the eye.
00:30:45
Speaker
You could see old discolored varnish kind of haloing around his head.
00:30:51
Speaker
And you could also see where there was end painting blended with older kind of discolored varnish.
00:31:01
Speaker
So
00:31:03
Speaker
It was a risk to clean this painting, but Craig examined the painting several times.
00:31:10
Speaker
And he's somebody I trust.
00:31:13
Speaker
He's worked on a number of paintings and he's had great success with removing overpaint and even with bringing back pieces or elements to a composition that had been erased.
00:31:31
Speaker
So it was a leap of faith and trust, but I had no idea what was going to happen once Cleaney.
00:31:38
Speaker
I mean, really, literally, we had no idea if we were going to find the figure at, you know, 20% there, 30% there.
00:31:49
Speaker
What was your sort of, when you finally saw it unveiled, so to speak, what was your impression on?
00:31:56
Speaker
Well, so Craig and I have a pretty good relationship, and he knows I don't scare easy, so he actually kind of kept me in the loop as he was cleaning.
00:32:05
Speaker
So I did see it, you know, with overpaint removed.
00:32:10
Speaker
The biggest losses were in the hair, and that was something the last conservator had talked to me about and said that it appeared that that was done intentionally.
00:32:22
Speaker
That was, from what I understand, from her opinion.
00:32:26
Speaker
And so the biggest losses were in the hair, but the face was very much there.
00:32:31
Speaker
And when I first saw the face, I remember with my wife and child, we were eating lunch and it was a different person almost.
00:32:42
Speaker
It really looked like a different person, just so much more lifelike.
00:32:46
Speaker
So it was amazing.
00:32:57
Speaker
So finally, in 2021, that necessary restoration work was done.
00:33:03
Speaker
That was 17 years after leaving Noma's collection, and that was after spending 32 years in the collection, with Belazere still painted over entirely.
00:33:16
Speaker
Despite the fact that all the way back in 1972, when the painting was donated,
00:33:22
Speaker
The donor was talking about the enslaved person who had been erased from it, despite the fact that a newspaper article described how an obscured figure could be seen in the image.
00:33:35
Speaker
Nevertheless, in 2004, without having done any restoration work, the museum decided to sell Belazare.
00:33:43
Speaker
They sent the painting to Christie's.
00:33:47
Speaker
Now, for whatever reason, that didn't happen in 1972 after they were accepted in the New Orleans Museum of Art.
00:33:54
Speaker
It didn't happen in 1982, 92, 2002.
00:33:55
Speaker
It stayed in the basement.
00:33:58
Speaker
It was never displayed once.
00:34:00
Speaker
And this painting in 2004, they made a decision to sell a bunch of things for the reason of, guess what?
00:34:12
Speaker
So they de-accessioned this piece to acquire new pieces.
00:34:18
Speaker
And for whatever reason, the notes say, because I was able to, after being persistent, politely persistent as I was earlier, I was able to get the records from the New Orleans Museum of Art.
00:34:32
Speaker
That was not an easy task.
00:34:35
Speaker
I was able to get those records.
00:34:37
Speaker
And I believe the reason, and I'm loosely quoting, it said, no longer relevant.
00:34:43
Speaker
This piece was, for some reason, no longer relevant.
00:34:47
Speaker
So they decided to deaccession in 2004.
00:34:51
Speaker
And strangely enough, they did not sell it locally in Louisiana, but they shipped it to Christie's.
00:34:57
Speaker
And it was no reserve.
00:34:59
Speaker
And it was only two pieces.
00:35:01
Speaker
Two pieces they sold at Christie's.
00:35:02
Speaker
Very strange.
00:35:04
Speaker
I asked the museum about that deaccession because one of the fundamental questions about Belazer's memory is, okay, we can understand and grapple with why Frederick Frey's descendants might have wanted to erase it, but for over three decades, this painting sat in storage in a public museum whose curatorial staff was certainly aware, or certainly should have been aware, that an enslaved person had been painted out of this masterpiece.
00:35:32
Speaker
Now, I'm not saying it wouldn't have taken some effort to work out Belisere's identity and make all the connections that we know about now, but the fact that this highly important example of antebellum Louisiana portraiture was known to contain a covered-up figure, and that the curators and specialists at the museum turned a blind eye to it for 30 years.
00:35:56
Speaker
To me, that sounds like a loud ringing alarm bell.
00:36:08
Speaker
And why, after those 30 years, did the museum arrive at the decision to sell the painting without restoring it?
00:36:15
Speaker
I can tell you what the museum's representative told me in a statement.
00:36:18
Speaker
Quote, The painting was deaccessioned by NOMA in 2004.
00:36:22
Speaker
The process was part of a periodic review of the museum's holdings, which is common practice in the field, and followed the rigorous professional standards set by the Association of Art Museum Directors.
00:36:39
Speaker
That's not a whole lot to go on, to be honest.
00:36:43
Speaker
But it's been 20 years, and it's hard to say what the museum personnel were thinking.
00:36:50
Speaker
Maybe they were having trouble reckoning with the complex racial history the painting signifies, and thought it would be easier not to own it anymore.
00:37:00
Speaker
Or maybe they were focusing on their international collections and didn't have much interest in regional painting.
00:37:07
Speaker
Or maybe it just seemed like an old dusty picture and no one had bothered to try and figure it out.
00:37:12
Speaker
I don't know.
00:37:16
Speaker
I do know that in 2019, the museum exhibited a show called Inventing Acadia.
00:37:23
Speaker
By then, Jeremy had started looking into the history of the Belazare painting, but he hadn't yet located it.
00:37:30
Speaker
Now, according to the statement Noma gave me, quote, Noma attempted to identify the work's owner and location with the hope of including the work in Inventing Acadia as part of the exhibition's exploration of which stories are told and which are not within historical landscape painting.
00:37:46
Speaker
Despite extensive efforts, Noma was unable to find the work.
00:37:50
Speaker
While it was not possible to include the painting in Inventing Acadia, the museum published images of the work before and after restoration in the exhibition's catalog and in a text panel in the galleries that recounted its story as it was understood at the time.
00:38:06
Speaker
So if you would have asked me
00:38:09
Speaker
Before I acquired the painting, my opinion would be different.
00:38:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:13
Speaker
But after everything, and after looking at the records, where they deaccessioned it, and after looking at the fact that they had an exhibit where they did mention this painting in 2018 in a book, and they must have pulled the record,
00:38:34
Speaker
I would believe that someone would pull the record that you have on the painting if you were going to include two full pages dedicated to it in an exhibit, right?
00:38:48
Speaker
So it's my opinion, for whatever reason, 2004...
00:38:54
Speaker
They saw this painting and they said, look, I don't know.
00:38:59
Speaker
They had to have read where it is because it mentions every it mentions even in the short form, you know, when they were sending it off to Christie's that there is a covered over figure.
00:39:11
Speaker
I mean, this is not you know, this was acknowledged and known.
00:39:15
Speaker
And it mentions in their file multiple times that this is an enslaved person.
00:39:20
Speaker
I mean, this is in their files.
00:39:21
Speaker
I have
00:39:22
Speaker
I should mention that for the better part of the year 2021, while Jeremy was neck deep in research about this painting, he was also sitting on the acquisitions board of NOMA.
00:39:32
Speaker
He resigned in October of that year amidst a dispute about this painting.
00:39:38
Speaker
I brought it to their attention in 2015.
00:39:42
Speaker
And then in 2018, I discussed it again.
00:39:48
Speaker
And then when the opportunity presented itself to acquire it in 2021, they acted very strange about it.
00:39:53
Speaker
I don't understand why they acted strange about it.
00:39:57
Speaker
It didn't make any sense to me.
00:39:59
Speaker
My brain was literally just like, why or what?
00:40:02
Speaker
This is what you've been waiting for.
00:40:04
Speaker
This is a monumental thing.
00:40:06
Speaker
You can write this wrong.
00:40:09
Speaker
OK, and, you know, there was excuses after excuse.
00:40:13
Speaker
Well, I got to talk to so and so.
00:40:14
Speaker
But, you know, they're on retreat.
00:40:16
Speaker
I'm like, well, do they have a cell phone?
00:40:18
Speaker
Can you call them?
00:40:19
Speaker
I'll try.
00:40:20
Speaker
And then there were phone calls.
00:40:21
Speaker
I kept calling and no one would respond.
00:40:23
Speaker
And that and all of this.
00:40:26
Speaker
Honestly, my opinion is they knew.
00:40:29
Speaker
They knew that this person had been covered over and they weren't ready to deal with that and didn't want to deal with that.
00:40:40
Speaker
But when I was able to acquire the painting, because they did not believe I would be able to probably because of the cost or maybe logistics or whatever else, they became very worried that I was going to tell the truth.
00:40:58
Speaker
And that's what I've been doing.
00:41:01
Speaker
And, you know, I didn't want it to be like this.
00:41:06
Speaker
I wanted them to acquire the painting and we'd all be smiling and talking about it and be in the New Orleans Museum of Art right now.
00:41:13
Speaker
That's what I was interested in.
00:41:14
Speaker
But they weren't ready for that, in my opinion.
00:41:19
Speaker
Now, I'm in no place to try to adjudicate this argument between Jeremy and Noma.
00:41:26
Speaker
I do think that something strange happened in 2004 when the museum sold the painting.
00:41:32
Speaker
And one could certainly imagine that Belazaire's race might have had something to do with that.
00:41:39
Speaker
That even 170 years after that cool spring day with Jacquemont and the Brooks Brothers' overcoat, and likely 100 years after being erased, Belazaire's presence was still posing a challenge.
00:41:53
Speaker
But even history as recent as 20 years ago isn't always so easy to figure out, and I don't have the receipts.
00:42:01
Speaker
I don't know who was part of that decision, and I don't know what was in their minds when they made it.
The Unveiling of Belazare's Story
00:42:06
Speaker
For now, Belazere remains with Jeremy, although the painting is currently on loan for exhibition at the Ogden Museum in New Orleans.
00:42:15
Speaker
What the future holds for it is something that we're going to explore next week.
00:42:19
Speaker
But the truth is, much about its past is just as uncertain as its future.
00:42:25
Speaker
What is certain is that without Jeremy's years of sleuthing and without Taylor saying, I remember seeing that, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
00:42:35
Speaker
And you'd be listening to a podcast about something completely different.
00:42:38
Speaker
You wouldn't have heard the name Belazare.
00:42:41
Speaker
But, indeed, you have been listening to Curious Objects from the magazine Antiques.
00:42:48
Speaker
This episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati.
00:42:51
Speaker
Social media and web support comes from Sarah Bellotta.
00:42:54
Speaker
Mateo Solis Prada is our digital media assistant.
00:42:58
Speaker
Our theme music is by Drap Rabbit.
00:43:00
Speaker
And I'm Ben Miller.