This likeness of an affectionately entwined mother and child is a rare work by the first free African American painter to earn a professional reputation. Johnson described himself in an advertisement as a “self-taught genius.” He worked almost exclusively as a portraitist, depicting Baltimore’s affluent, mostly white, merchants, officials, military officers, and several of his neighbors, among them Elizabeth Aitkin and her eight-year-old daughter. Like many of Johnson’s patrons, Elizabeth and her husband Andrew were active supporters of the abolition of slavery.

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