Apr 15, 2021 - Sale 2564

Sale 2564 - Lot 121

Price Realized: $ 2,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(CIVIL WAR.) A.G. Campbell, engraver; after W.D. Washington. Burial of Latané. Mezzotint, 27 3/4 x 34 1/2 inches; edge wear and toning, spot-mounted to modern mat and overmat. New York: W.H. Chase, 1868

Additional Details

Captain William Latané was a Virginia cavalryman killed in action under Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart in June 1862. His body was taken to a nearby plantation for burial. As the plantation's white men were fighting at the front, and the local minister was delayed from attendance by Union troops, the funeral was handled by the women and enslaved people. The scene was described in a poem, and in 1864 was captured on canvas by William R. Washington. After the war the painting was reproduced in several popular prints, of which this was the first, and became an enduring image of the Lost Cause. "A standard decorative item in late-nineteenth-century white southern homes"--Drew Gilpin-Faust, This Republic of Suffering, page 84. The Civil War brings the first era of the Republic to a close.